


Codex

by Bjorntheblorg



Series: Codex [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Evil Kara Danvers, F/F, Guys dead Mon-El is a character tag, Kryptonian Culture & Customs, Mash-up with Man of Steel, Red Kryptonite Kara Danvers, Technically Kara isn't Kara Danvers here, Very fowl language, tempting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 25,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16713709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bjorntheblorg/pseuds/Bjorntheblorg
Summary: When Jor-El put the Growth Codex inside of his son, Kal-El, he ensured the biological survival of Kryptonians. When Zor-El put his Codex inside of his daughter, it was to ensure the survival of Krypton.





	1. Crash landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I loved watching Man of Steel, I thought it was a very interesting rendition of Superman's origin story. Then I started thinking since Kara does know a fair bit about Krypton...
> 
> Which became this. Basically, if you never watched Man of Steel, Jor-El puts the Growth Codex inside of Kal-El's body. So he is a host for all different combinations of Kryptonian DNA. In Kara's head, there is a similar Codex, except this one has all of Krypton's culture and technology. Krypton isn't dead yet, they sent Kara and Kal just in case they failed.
> 
> Story Elements
> 
> ~~~~~~ represents a change of POV  
> ******* represents a time jump in the same POV

There were many things people called Cat Grant. Ruthless, cunning, evil bitch sometimes. She took every name with stride, refusing to back down just because some “mean” words were thrown her way. However, the only moniker she never let anyone use was “stupid” or its derivatives.

She was many things, but stupid was the furthest from any.

So when Kara Richter was hired she made sure she had a background check done. Then did it again only this time Cat Grant got the best PI in the business (legality is rarely an issue if your rich and smart) and had them run it.

The results came back, Kara Richter did not exist as a real person until five years ago.

 

***********************************************

“Ms Grant, your coffee.” Kara handed her a latte, hot but cool enough to sip on immediately without having to wait.

Cat ignored the barely regulation espresso machine Kara had underneath her desk. Not only did it make excellent espresso, but it did also keep all her other drones happy when Kara gave them sugary concoctions. She would admit if it weren’t for Kara dulling out her sharp edges the turnover rate at CatCo would be sky high.

(The weak drones always left within a week, those who stayed used to earn their chairs. Unfortunately, nowadays weak minded Millennials flew out the doors of her office faster than she could replace them, until Kara.)

“Kiera get the layouts from the art department and schedule an appointment with my hair stylist.” Cat took a sip of the warm coffee, it was good. Somehow Kara managed to perfect the ratio of warm milk to espresso.

Kara gave her a smile and a nod, then she was off bouncing towards the art department. Cat sighed, for once in her life she didn’t know what to do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex grit her teeth, this was the last time she ever got on a damn plane.

The plane shuddered, another engine dying and ripping itself free from the wing. All around her were panicking people, painfully aware that could easily be their last moments. She, herself, was at peace with it. Not really because she hated life, but because there was more to death than anyone let on.

She turned to the kid next to her, Nina, and smiled.

“Crazy flight huh?” She asked while offering her arm for Nina to cling on.

Nina was ten, she proudly told Alex, and was on the flight to see her Dad who was stationed in Europe. Her Mom sent her off in her scrubs, a crying mess that Alex managed to calm down. She promised Nina’s mom she’d make sure Nina was safe. Nina had been so excited to have a grown-up friend and fly on an airplane.

Now she looked at Alex as if she was crazy.

“Don’t worry, someone’s going to save us.” She knew Hank. He would drop everything to keep her safe no matter how much he ripped into her at times.

“Huh.” For some reason Nina wasn’t crying, the situation mustn’t have hit yet or otherwise Alex bet the little girl would be a sobbing mess like her mother.

“Like a Guardian Angel.”

At that moment the entire plane shuddered again, Alex sat back and took a breath. There were no more engines to lose, she kept count. The other one had been number three, this one would be number four.

She was completely prepared for the plane to start going down, even Nina was. They waited, side hugging, for the plane to move.

It did. Forward.

“Alex look!” Nina cried out, pointing toward the wing.

Alex craned her neck, gasping at the sight. A blonde woman, wearing a dark blue shirt and black pants was pushing up the plane, balancing out the side with no engine. Once the plane lost its last engine, the woman let go and dove under the belly, pushing presumably.

Alex was so deep in shock her brain didn’t process anything except for the feeling of Nina hugging her.

No way, there was no way.

It was as if there had been no trouble at all, the plane glided smoothly towards the river and landed with finesse, like the Hudson River landing nearly a decade ago. There was a slight push and pull, but everyone cheered and Alex let herself relax, the tension draining from her body and mind.

She looked over at the wing and saw the woman, standing and looking off in the distance. It was, actually quite depressing to look at. The blonde looked so lost, and lonely. The moment flood lights began aiming at her the blonde woman snapped out of whatever state she was in and she was off, flying into the sky with more grace and power than a bird.

“How did you know?” Nina squealed, the trauma of almost dying fading from her mind.

“Know what?”

“That an Angel would come?”

Nina looked at her with massive brown eyes full of wonder and excitement, just like when she boarded the flight. Alex smiled.

“Because I’m an adult and I know things.” They laughed somehow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cat was about to go home when she got the news. Quickly she managed to publish the story on CatCo Web, and started gathering pictures. The world knew about superheroes, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, even Batman, but they had always been human or metahuman. Something most people were comfortable with, but this girl.

She was a God.

Physics was a whimsical suggestion, Gravity was an afterthought. No metahuman was strong enough to carry a commercial airplane, in the air, for over a mile. And the flying, it was so fast that some people thought she just teleported.

The implications for that were terrifying.

  
She hated to admit it, but she would have to control the narrative. This God, Goddess, whatever title the being preferred, was obviously powerful. Powerful things scared people, especially when they knew they couldn’t control it. But, make powerful things tame, play nice, and hide its nature, people easily forgot they weren’t in control.

And, there was so much power attached to a being like that, she could create Empires or destroy the vanguards of evil. No matter how much this being wanted it or didn’t, she was now a Tyrant on Earth. Unmatched in power or strength whatever she decided she would get eventually. Hopefully, Cat could talk to her, before the same thoughts occurred to her.

The only problem was, how could she get into contact with it?

‘Supergirl.’ Cat thought. ‘Maybe I should name her.’

***********************************************

Through her diligence, she managed to publish the story first, hours before the Daily Planet even got a nibble. The next morning she happily noted that most other news articles were linking back to her own for information. Kara even hid her espresso machine.

“Ms. Grant your latte.”

Cat did not freeze, no one on her payroll would ever admit she froze, but for a short second, she caught a very distinct smell, one she hadn’t smelt since the 70s when she finally stopped flying coach.

“Kiera, why do you smell like a car?” Cat snapped, not touching the latte.

To the younger workers, it smelled like diesel, but Cat knew better. Jet Fuel.

“Oh,” Kara was a good actor, her eyebrows raised and her mouth even formed an “o”. Cat knew the signs though, a truly surprised person wasn’t nearly this tense. “I spilled a little bit of gas before coming to work. I’m sorry Ms. Grant.”

“Go home.” Cat sighed, she wasn’t a monster. Kara’s face fell and she wanted to hug the little puppy. “Get changed and then come back, without spilling toxic fuel on you. I won’t have carcinogens polluting this office Kiera.”


	2. Setting the Board

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification, these are two different events. Cat's span nearly a week while Alex and the DEO happen a day after the last day with Cat. Cat comes first, always. :)

A few days after Supergirl announced herself to the world, she stopped a runaway truck from colliding into a gated community. Cat should have announced it as the first good work by her newly appointed superhero, hero wasn’t enough anymore. But, as she reviewed the details of the case, it turned her heart cold.

 

Supergirl used too much force to stop the truck.

 

Sure there was the idea that she was new, but the way she saved the airplane a few weeks ago showed a being in tune with herself. This was reckless, a power play. As if she were trying to tell the world, they bowed to her whims, not the other way around.

 

Cat quickly took over that narrative, “Super Powered Rescue” she called it instead of “Unamused God.”.

 

Still, the burned body of the driver, the squashed remains of the small family unlucky enough to get caught between the thousands of pounds of sheet metal haunted every word of the article.

 

She focused on other tasks to take her mind off Supergirl’s grey ethics. Perhaps to take her mind off her own mortality.

 

She demanded pictures of Supergirl, both to be the first news organization with a clear glimpse of the hero and to have something she could control. She couldn’t control Supergirl yet, but the faceless, nameless minions she fired at will were easily manipulated into doing her bidding.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Alex clenched her jaw. It was her third day out in the field watching the skies for another sighting of Earth’s first visitor. Well, publicly known one. For decades the US Government had known that aliens lived among their citizens. They tried making Area 51 an area of operations, but that became too public and they moved it elsewhere.

 

When Metahumans came out, it gave the Department of Metahuman Activity billions of dollars, and the ability to create a small well-funded subsection. The DEO, Department of Extranormal Operations.

 

One department hunted rogue metahumans, the other hunted rogue aliens.

 

Today though, she had a special device created by their resident alien genius, Jax-Ur. The exiled Kryptonian had created a device that could only be heard by most aliens, a call sign of sorts. Alex pressed the button and waited.

 

It took a minute max, for the blonde woman to land in front of her. In person Supergirl was taller than she thought, exuding confidence and almost her dominance in a sense.

 

“I am Agent Danvers of the DEO.” Alex lost that battle with Hank, the script they made for introducing themselves as agents of the Government was boring and pointless. “And the Government of the United States of America wishes to welcome you to our country.”

 

It wasn’t like Aliens knew what the DEO was or even recognized the government.

 

“Thank you, for the formal welcome.” Supergirl frowned but nodded. “Is there a reason you called me here?”

 

It was Alex’s turn to frown. “How did…”

 

“Well, I mean, it doesn’t make sense for the government to be calling any other alien.”

 

Alex tried to think of a comeback, she really did, but words escaped her at the moment. Supergirl looked calm, like the sea and Alex felt like a sailor thrashed about too many times to enjoy the peace.

 

“You were called here Supergirl because we need to evaluate you,” Hank answered before Alex could, appearing out of the shadows. “We need to know you aren’t a threat.”

 

“I cannot promise that.” Supergirl crossed her arms, her eyes downcast. “I’m here looking for my little cousin. He crashed landed on Earth five years ago.”

 

Alex’s breath hitched, but no one seemed to notice.

“Then why did you help those people?”

 

Supergirl took a breath. “Because they were people in need of help and I could finally do it. And, I need help. I can’t find him.”

 

It nearly broke Alex’s heart when Supergirl’s eyes lowered and she wanted to comfort the woman, but Hank’s steely gaze centered her. She couldn’t reveal all their cards and they didn’t know if Supergirl was friendly or not.

 

“Can you help me?”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kara was late. Cat was already on her way to CatCo when she saw her blonde assistant running up the stairs. It was an interesting habit of Kara’s to be there nearly an hour before Cat. In her contract, Kara only needed to show up at the exact same time as Cat, but of course, she never told her assistants when she would be arriving.

 

By now she had settled into her regular schedule, arriving around 8 o’clock and leaving at near 5. In the first few weeks of a new assistant, she varied her hours, showing up nearly three in the morning or even as late as two in the afternoon to test their readiness. Only Kara ever passed.

 

Somehow Cat took the elevator and still made it after Kara, who nearly ran up thirty floors. If that wasn’t a tell-tale sign, then Cat wondered what was.

 

“Ms. Grant.” Kara smiled. “Your latte.”

 

Still warm. And without a pant.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“We can make a deal, Supergirl,” Hank answered, shifting his weight. A sign he was tense, Alex tensed up too, watching the two. “If you help us here at the DEO we can help you find your cousin.”

 

The smile the blonde alien gave them was almost the sun incarnate, it almost made Alex believe those articles that claimed Supergirl was a goddess.

 

“Yes of course!” She nodded like a happy little puppy. “Anything, I’ll help you guys!”

 

“First, what is your real name?”

 

“On Earth, I am Kara Richter, but on my planet, I was called Kara Dru-Zod.”

 

Somehow Alex knew that wasn’t quite right. But Hank either bought it or didn’t care, and he nodded. They led Kara Dru-Zod toward the DEO headquarters, another benefit of the millions under the table. Hank drove and kept Kara in a conversation while Alex texted her parents.

 

_‘Someone’s coming for Clark.’_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

 

“If I could get an interview with Supergirl, we wouldn’t have to fire all of those people Kiera,” Cat answered. “But, I can’t and CatCo doesn’t attract enough readers to keep the Tribune’s carcass alive. I have to fire them. Send out the first wave of papers in the morning.”

 

“You’re going to let them suffer?” Kara gasped. “You bought the company!”

 

The words stung, gently, but still hurt nevertheless. Cat had already thought about it, and already come to terms with doing another “bitch” move as her competitors loved to call it. She could easily integrate the 203 Tribune employees into CatCo, but it would cause lower wages and worse quality of life for everyone overall.

 

She could pick the best and brightest from the Tribune, but they wouldn’t fit anywhere. She already looked at the roster, and their offerings. There was nothing they could offer that Cat didn’t already have, and those departments were overfull as it was.

 

And if CatCo absorbed these loose sheep, and lost value while doing so, Cat would make nearly a thousand people miserable.

 

“Kara, what can I do?” Cat sighed. “At the very least I can control the release of these highly qualified journalists. If they were all fired at the same time some of them wouldn’t get jobs until it was too late.”

 

Kara blinked. “I could get in touch with Supergirl.”

 

“How?”

 

Cat wondered how long they were going to play this game, Kara pretending not to be someone else while she dropped hints.

 

“She met me this morning.” Kara answered, fiddling with a watch Cat suddenly noticed was on her wrist. “She said, she needed good press and a way of finding her little cousin. And she had the feeling you’d want to talk to her soon.”

 

Kara opened the cover, revealing instead of a clock face a small green button.

 

“It’s why I was late this morning, uh, she said if you needed her,  to tell me and I would press this button.” Kara pointed to the small green circle and looked up, her eyes full of fear.

 

Cat almost couldn’t tell, if it was real or not. She sighed and let it rest for today. There were more important issues to think about.

 

“Why would she give it to you and not me directly.”

 

“Leaving a message with a messenger.”

 

Like an email through an assistant, Cat thought. How clever.

 

“Alright, Kiera press that magic button and make sure you get me my latte before Supergirl gets here.”

 

“Yes Ms. Grant.”

 

 


	3. Of Rao and other things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with Raoism, since there's almost nothing about it on the internet. Also, Mon-El.

After filling out some paperwork and briefing her on her new job as an alien agent, Hank let Supergirl go. Once she was out of sight Hank made his way back into the DEO, but this time instead of going toward the open command center he made is way deep into cement underground.

 

Alex was there already, sparring with Mon-El, resident Daxamite who worked with the DEO in exchange for residency.

 

“How did you find a Kryptonian on Earth?” Mon-El asked as he managed to evade Alex’s jab.

 

“A what?” Alex asked, continuing with sparing.

 

“That explains why I couldn’t hear her thoughts.” Hank shook his head.

 

“A Kryptonian, an obnoxious self righteous group that thinks everyone else is barbaric and beneath them.”

 

“They are a race of space travellers.” Hank ignored the Daxamite. “But for the last few centuries they have stopped exploring. They have gone silent.”

 

“And then two crash land on Earth?” Alex stopped. “Why?”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Cat Grant.” Supergirl smiled, actually smiled with her teeth bared. In a non-threatening way almost. “It’s a pleasure meeting you.”

 

She didn’t offer her hand, and Cat wouldn’t have taken it anyway. Not that she was trying to be impolite, but the idea of offering herself up to a being who could easily tear her arm off and throw her off the building is not appealing.

 

“Supergirl.” Cat gestures towards one of her couches. “Please, have a seat.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The next time Supergirl shows up there is a news article about her, published by CatCo. The government wasn’t pleased, J'onn spent the next few days stuck in meetings upon meetings about the leaked information. Alex is placed in charge as interim director, and she makes sure that Supergirl answers for her stunt.

Though the problem is Supergirl is rare these days. She hasn’t stopped helping people, but she has been avoiding the DEO and any government agencies. It has everyone a little on edge.

 

Mon-El had been an indispensable tool for the past few days, regurgitating anything he knew about Krypton. Literally, regurgitating. He wouldn’t shut up, and his ego had swelled over the past few days, since he was the only person at the DEO who knew about Supergirl’s homeworld.

 

Alex was a fair and level-headed person, but she caved a little and sent the agents she liked the least to record all of Mon-El’s information. To be fair, Janeth almost ran her over.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Why are you here?” Cat asked.

 

Supergirl looked at the recorder, taking a long pause to gather her thoughts.

 

“I can tell you, Cat, but you’ll have to get rid of that.” Supergirl nodded her head toward the small grey device. “And the one in your pocket. Put it on the table, remove the tape from either one. You won’t get them back.”

 

Cat rarely did as she was told, in her youth she would get into trouble for doing the exact opposite of any request, but now faced with a calm angry alien she did exactly as she was told. She put the cheap recorder down next to the standard CatCo recorder every journalist got. Supergirl looked up at her, holding her gaze before her eyes turned red and suddenly Cat was sitting in front of a human furnace.

 

In a heartbeat both of her recorders were melted bits of plastic and metal, the burning smell of plastic assaulting her senses. Supergirl took her time scooping up the burned remains, walking to the balcony, and throwing the remains into the black night sky.

 

If it were anyone else Cat would have scolded them for their negligence, but somehow she knew no one would ever find the recorders.

 

“Cat, if someone took Carter away from you, what would you do?” Supergirl asked gently, not bothering to watch for her reaction.

 

Cat knew what she would do, this time around no one would ever separate her from her little boy, ex-husbands be damned.

 

“They would never be able to again.” Cat answered.

 

“Then you know how I feel,” Supergirl turned around. “The government took my little cousin away from me. They will never give him back, because they think they know better.”

 

Cat frowned. Where in the world was Supergirl going with this?

 

“The government has a secret agency, the Department of Metahuman Activities. They have a subdivision called the Department of Extranormal Operations, which is in charge of capturing and torturing aliens for the advancement of the human race.” Supergirl walked forward, stopping at the edge of Cat’s personal bubble.

 

“Cat Grant, would you like the story of your career?” The light in Supergirl’s eyes was bright, almost brighter than the sun.

 

“What’s in it for you?”

 

Out of the millions of lessons she learned in her long life, the one she knew by heart was everyone was selfish to a degree. There was always something, a hidden agenda, motive. And she knew, Supergirl wasn’t being completely honest, but she couldn’t tell what about.

 

“My family. My safety. Who knows when the DEO will turn on me? Once they know I won’t help them in their evil ways?”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So what about you, Agent Danvers?” Kara asked, devouring the last of the ice cream. “Any brothers or sisters?”

 

“No.” Alex answered, shaking her head.

 

J’onn and Alex both decided for the best interest of Clark they wouldn’t tell Kara about his existence yet. Not until they could figure out Kara’s intentions. So far Alex was having a hard time sorting it out, Kara operated as an open book and as Supergirl she would stop on a dime to save someone’s pet stuck in a tree.

 

“I always wanted a sister though.” Alex shrugged. “But it wasn’t in the cards for my parents.”

 

Kara nodded. She had spent the last hour listening to Kara’s life on Krypton, talking about how she was a single daughter of a General. She was the youngest member of the Science Guild, traveling to Earth to prove a point on galactic travel. It was her thesis of sorts, like Alex’s dissertation that she had to defend for her PhD.

 

“Me too, but on Krypton we make a specific amount of children to replace people who have joined Rao’s light.” Kara paused. “And my Father did not desire anymore children after me.”

 

“Whose Rao?”

 

Kara snapped up, her back straightening and her eyes almost disconnecting from her surroundings.

 

“Rao is he who ignited the sun. Rao is a red dwarf that Krypton rotates around, a low energy star,” Before Kara could go on Alex interrupted.

 

“What was that?” She asked, a frown forming on her face.

 

It was creepy, almost robotic how Kara snapped into a teacher like mode. There was something off about it, not completely human in how monotone Kara’s drone had become. An uncanny valley of sorts.

 

Kara blushed, which was comforting in a strange way. At least Alex knew that Kryptonians and Humans shared that particular trait.

 

“Sorry, I got really excited about Rao, he is our Sun and our God.”

 

“Why would the youngest member of the science guild be excited about Rao?” That set off red flags that Alex decided to set aside for later. She would have to bring that up to J’onn.

 

Kara shrugged without thought, also somewhat comforting.

 

“It is another passion of mine. Kryptonian culture and history fascinated me, I could have also become the Kryptonian version of a lawyer.” Kara looked up and smiled. “Would you like to order potstickers? It is the best food on Earth.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Cat had to step in when she saw Kara. Her productivity had been nearly low enough for Cat to fire her blonde assistant, but she thought otherwise. Kara had a great track record and she didn’t need Supergirl to reign down fire on her because she lost her underpaid job.

 

“Kiera!” She shouted from her office.

 

In a heartbeat Kara was up and at her door.

 

“Close the door Kiera.”

 

She did.

 

“What’s wrong? Your productivity levels are low enough to warrant a pink slip, consider this your favor for getting that interview with Supergirl, but if you continue with this get ready to polish up your resume.”

 

The problem was Cat didn’t know how far she could push without triggering Supergirl, but since Kara had been her assistant for the past few years and she was still alive… well. At least she knew Kara could handle tough love.

 

Kara winced, not bothering to pull her head up.

 

“I’m just a little homesick.” She almost whispered. “That’s all, I’m sorry Ms. Grant. I’ll get back to work.”

 

Cat made a show of sighing. “You millennials, sobbing over leaving home. It’s a wonder how you get apartments to begin with.”

 

Of course she was concerned, her files never stated that Kara came from anywhere far. Kara Richter came from National City, born and raised nearly a mile away from CatCo in a nice little suburb. This area would have been Kara’s stomping grounds as a youth, and home was only a short drive away.

 

“I just miss my parent’s religion,” Kara answered, she was finally looking up, at Cat’s desk, instead of her cheap shoes. “Tomorrow we would have celebrated the day our God overcame darkness and evil.”

 

“Well, you can worship tomorrow.” Cat answered arily waving her hand around. “It’s part of your contract.”

 

Kara didn’t rise to the bait.

 

“Well, it requires… we had to watch the sun rise from the highest plane, and then we had to chant out meditations.”

 

Cat waited. She knew the question and already had an answer.

 

“I… well CatCo is the tallest building in National City.” Kara’s eyes darted around the room, everywhere in Cat’s general area.

 

“Okay Kiera.” Finally Kara looked at her.

 

“What?”

 

Cat fought the urge to roll her eyes. Kara read the contract of course, she followed all of the rules Cat had laid out for her, but she found it hard to believe that Kara didn’t read the section on religious observance.

 

“If you need to, you can use CatCo to worship. It’s in your contract that I, or CatCo, will not interfere with religious observances and will allow the use of facilities to worship. As a matter of fact, no one or entity should ever interfere with things like that. Now go get me butter coffee.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Supergirl, can you come in tomorrow for a briefing?” J’onn asked without looking up from his computer screen.

 

“No, I’m sorry, I have something tomorrow,” Supergirl answered softly.

 

J’onn looked up and locked eyes with the blonde alien. Alex could feel the, not quite rage but not quite friendly, tension building. She looked at Supergirl, who looked barely comfortable with the answer she had just given the Director.

 

“If it’s something insignificant…” He started, the lighting pouring from his eyes.

 

Some agents were already on their way out of the room when Supergirl decided to defend herself.

 

“It’s a religious holiday on Krypton.” She answered. “I’m sorry, but it’s my duty as a Kryptonian to observe it.”

 

J’onn sighed. “I understand, but sometimes things cannot wait for anything Supergirl, and you have to make sacrifices.”

 

“I know, Director, but I will be worshiping tomorrow. We can talk about equipment and me sparring with Agent Danvers the next day.”

 

Alex tried not to frown, but she knew why Supergirl already knew. Mon-El had left the agenda in the breakroom and she took Supergirl out there to have lunch together. She thought Supergirl wouldn’t have read it, but it looks like she did.

 

J’onn blinked before sighing, releasing all of the tension in the room.

 

“Alright Supergirl, but remember in the future lives will depend on you.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Cat smiled, it was a very early winter morning. No one was here except for her and Kara, who was kneeling before the open window panels in her office facing the dark horizon. In another few minutes, the sun would be rising. It had taken another panicked conversation but she finally got Kara to use her office to worship.

 

‘Praise Rao who ignited the sun. Praise Rao who defeated the primordial evil. Praise Rao, the unconquered sun.’

 

She was so happy that Kara finally felt relaxed enough to be herself she decided not to pay attention to the language that she couldn’t understand. That was for a later time.


	4. Hidden and wide open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it just me, but does Jeremiah look like Jerry from Wizards of Waverly place?

The first thing they had made Supergirl do was to change her uniform. It was unnerving, the uniform reminded Alex of classified missions she may or may not have been apart off. The superhero said nothing as she and Winn designed uniforms, eventually settling on a blue bodysuit with a red cape. The materials were constantly being upgraded by the material scientists the DEO hired to make anti-alien weapons. Supergirl’s exploits were a tough challenge on the three-person team as they had to make a lightweight fabric that was bulletproof, burn proof, and mostly tear proof.

 

They were having fun though, every time Alex would go downstairs for her own project they would happily explain every little detail of the new fabrics they made.

 

Mon-El was being as insufferable as always and made it his personal mission to one-up Supergirl in everything she did. When it came to fighting they were evenly matched, but when it came to dealing with aliens Mon-El always had the upper hand. Not like Supergirl fought him or anything, she seemed to not give a damn about anything he did which was disorientating to Alex and drove Mon-El near crazy. 

 

He loved getting into fights, which lead to more captures while Supergirl preferred to talk things out before throwing punches. Actually, they never saw Supergirl throw a punch, for all they knew she could be stronger than Mon-El.

 

That bothered Alex more than anything else, Supergirl was always hiding, always avoiding the question or answering in a very useless way.

 

“Where do you work?” Alex had asked her once over lunch with potstickers.

 

Kara gave her a tight smile. “I work in the multimedia industry.”

 

The smile told Alex no more questions would be entertained. 

 

“Mon-El, Supergirl, there is an alien threat over Arizona,” Hank said. “Go neutralize it.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

They set it up as a trap, Mon-El was to get “distracted” from the mission by the Red Tornado while Supergirl would have to fight another stronger robot created by the Government. She had been very elusive, refusing to allow for tests of strength, speed, or agility. She had been clear, she was going to help people, but her main mission was to find her lost little cousin. 

 

That, that hadn’t been helpful at all and the Government was demanding displays. Measurable data that would prove how useful Supergirl was to their causes.

 

Mon-El flew, watching Supergirl from the edge of her eye. She wasn’t looking at anything in particular, just straightforward. They were right at the edge of Arizona when something flew up and slammed into Mon-El’s shoulder. 

 

It didn’t hurt, like it was programmed to, but it was enough force to send Mon-El spiralling off. Losing his balance he had to fall to regain his bearings before pretending to fight Red Tornado.

 

“Go!” He yelled. Supergirl had stopped in mid-flight to watch him. “I’ll take care of him!”

 

She nodded and continued on.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Alex didn’t know how to feel. Supergirl had disarmed the robot sent by the government by goading it into a mountainside. Going regular speed. She regrouped with Mon-El, who had taken off the detachable head of Red Tornado, and they both made their way back to the DEO.

 

Sam Lane, the general in charge of the test, was so furious that he stormed into the DEO headquarters to scream at Hank. But there was nothing he could do, the DEO had done its job, and Supergirl had done hers.

 

After the fight Supergirl had asked her, and the other ragtag group of DEO agents she managed to enrapture, out for a game night. She was smiling the entire night, which added to the good spirits of the group since Lane had gotten screamed at himself.

 

Alex was pretty happy too, it wasn’t fair that they had to dupe Kara like that, she understood the pacifistic approach. It was doing the crime rate wonders since many petty criminals went out to seek therapy after talking with Supergirl instead of filling jail cells. Even hostile aliens were swayed, but because of Mon-El's reputation, they weren’t sure if it was because of Supergirl or Mon-El.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lane was not pleased at all. He bristled under the thought that an alien dared to better him. The humiliation of being scolded by the Chief of Staff of the United States Army had his blood boiling and his mind racing. This he was doing for the better of humanity and how dare they be blind to the very real threat Supergirl and Mon-El were.

 

Mon-El leveled an entire damn section of National City when he arrived for goodness sake!

 

Maxwell Lord quietly smiled in the corner while watching the footage.

 

He was a great human, with a working brain in his head unlike his compatriots in the government. They were all blinded by the girlish smile Supergirl gave to everyone, like free samples.

 

“I know what to do.” He answered. “And the Army will fully back my magnetic train?”

 

“Yes.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maxwell Lord wasn’t easy to scare. Being scared was not very scientific, fear came from the unknown but he knew very well how everything worked. Except for Supergirl. She didn’t react to his drones until they were right on top of her, but then instead of rising to the bait she simply destroyed them with her heat vision.

 

Something the entire world knew about.

 

The last drone she managed to surprise, grabbing it and disconnecting his camera. And Maxwell Lord became afraid. But he wasn’t one to break his word, so he enacted plan two.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Plan two was going along swimmingly, with the abduction of Perry Waters. He didn’t pick her, but she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The metal hull of the ship had been breached by a carefully aimed drone that would never be traced back to Lord Industries.

 

She woke up, the entire room was blurry and grey. That had happened before, bad eyes were part of her genes. In a few years, she would have to start wearing glasses. Once her eyes cleared, she realized something. Her room wasn’t nearly this cold or grey.

 

Her heart leaped into her chest. 

 

_ no No NO NONONO! _

 

The stories of supervillains torturing civilians just for their sadistic pleasure was unavoidable. She thought that having an alien superhero would have made National City safer than Gotham, but…

 

She began pulling at the door, if she didn’t know better she would have thought it was bolted to the wall. 

 

Soon the room began filling with water if the seal on the door hadn’t been slightly cut she would have been mostly fine until the Navy could get to her. Now she only had ten minutes before the entire cavity filled with salty dirty water. Screaming until her voice gave she pounded at the rising ceiling. 

 

“Please! PLEASE!”

 

Perry Waters wasn’t a religious woman. Her parents had never been, and she went to Church once in her entire life for a wedding.

 

But now she prayed to anyone who would listen to her. She promised the god who saved her that she would dedicate her entire life to them. The skin of her fist broke, dark red liquid spilled and dotted the water below.

 

Before she could take her final breath, the ceiling opened and a goddess glowing gold delivered her.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Max frowned, the footage he recovered from the ship showed a glowing Supergirl, but before anything interesting could happen all of his cameras were destroyed. The last one standing only showed a, minus the glowing, human Supergirl who threw a rock at the last camera.

 

And he couldn’t go back to the ship, the Navy tore it up recovering scrap metal from it.

 

This would be far more interesting than he thought.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The bullet train was headed for her, and in her last few moments on earth, all Alex could think about was, “Bullet trains can reach 300 mph because of magnets.”

 

Yes, it was very helpful.

 

The bright lights of the train were overwhelming if she actually survived Alex wasn’t sure if she wouldn’t be blind. She was currently chained to a cement wall at the end of the track. Normally there would have been another station, but Lord decided not to finish it. The train was supposed to run at full speed for half the distance before slowing and returning to the original station. 

 

By the way things were going, it looked like it wasn’t ever going to stop.

 

No one was coming, Mon-El and Supergirl were at the airport with Hank. This was her end. Alex Danvers, reduced to a small splatter that would get washed off by the rain or city street power washers. Her only regret was not being able to see Clark grow up.  When it should have been her end, she fell backward, ending upside down while the train flew passed her. She dropped straight down but landed on her back gently as the train behind her flew off the rails ten feet below.

 

Alex looked up at Supergirl, who had a pair of steel cutters and was currently snipping at her bonds. Never in her entire life had she been so happy to see the blonde. 

 

“The airport?” She managed to blurt out instead of the millions of gratitudes filling her mind. 

 

“Hank found out it was a dud.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“You didn’t tell me you had a little brother!” Kara laughed.

 

She had asked Alex for a ticket to her dad’s lecture, he was speaking on what he knew about alien culture, now a booming field since the arrival of Supergirl. Mon-El had triggered it years ago when he first crash-landed into Hollywood, but it grew less interested when they found out besides space travel Daxam was basically a worse version of Earth. Or better, depending on who you asked. Still, somehow her dad managed to get along with him.

 

Jeremiah Danvers was a close friend of Mon-El’s, who told him everything he knew about the alien worlds. Which was far more than anyone actually thought. Kara was interested in what Jeremiah thought. To her, as Kara explained, it was like having an American lecture about German society to Germans in America. She promised she would help her dad out after the lecture.

 

Alex asked her dad first, who was more than happy to talk to Supergirl especially since she did save his daughter’s life.

 

Alex herself was shaken, but all feelings of her former misgivings were swept away as Supergirl quickly cut her out and saved all of the passenger cabins of the train. Not a single life was lost that night, so she felt better about letting Kara see Clark. She even told her parents, who had been tense ever since she had told them about Kara.

 

And since the night Alex had decided to open up to Kara, who returned the favor, almost oversharing. She knew Kara loved potstickers, accidentally crashed into a moose because she saw a cute dog, and once had a cat named Streaky.

 

Clark had hugged her, Eliza almost had a heart attack and then had one when Kara didn’t even flinch. 

 

“Hey little guy what’s your name?” She asked, smile brighter than the sun.

 

“Clark Danvers!” He proudly declared after getting off her. Alex smiled, he finally got the “r’s” right.

 

“Hello Clark Danvers!” Kara stuck out her hand. “My name is Kara Richter!” 

 

They shook hands, and it looked like a normal human handshake, but Alex could feel the wind beating against her. 

 

“Clark why don’t you finish your homework?” Eliza said gently, fear lining her eyes.

 

Alex didn’t miss the thin line of Kara’s lips before she smiles and introduced herself.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jeremiah couldn’t remember a time, except for the birth of his daughter and the day they got Clark, that he was nearly this happy. Kara had listened to his entire lecture, and the entire time he felt terrified. He knew more than the average person, but compared to an actual alien? It was almost embarrassing, but Kara’s infectious smile got him through the lecture.

 

Right after he finished Kara bounded up to him, like an excited puppy, and began gushing about the lecture.

 

“That was so cool! I never thought people would look at things like that!” She flipped through her notebook, full to the brim with notes. In English. “I want to talk to you about the artifacts from Saturn…”

 

They spent nearly an entire day in his study trading notes about culture. Jeremiah never knew aliens could be so funny, Kara recounted her days on a foreign planet he would never be able to visit, where she ran with younglings and they managed to soak an entire delegation in their version of jelly donuts.

 

“My father couldn’t tell if he wanted to be mad or proud that I teleported donuts into a shielded place.” Kara smiled. “He took a lot of the blame, claiming he had me test our systems for bugs.”

 

They traded stories after Kara corrected him on everything she wanted to correct. There were certain fields that she skirted around, anything STEM related was out of reach. But, he was far too happy about all the new information about cultures and societies to care much. 

 

In fact it slipped his mind completely when Kara offered to teach him Martian.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

El knew she had seen the face of Rao incarnate. Her eyes glowed with the golden holy fire, and when she spoke he could see reflections of the great fire flying of her tongue.

 

‘ _ It is time’ _ He whispered.

 

This was his sign.

 

El nodded and smiled, offering her a thin booklet that He wrote through his mortal hands. She devoured it, the holy fire burning brighter. 

 

“Come.” El said. “Let’s talk about Rao, and Rao incarnate.”

  
  
  



	5. Out of the Pan into the Fire

Eliza was mad at her, and Alex thought it wouldn’t affect her, but of course, it did. Clark was forced out of Kara’s sight while Eliza’s angry glare bore into Alex’s back. She ignored it, over the past few years she had mastered the skill of pretending her mother’s wrath meant nothing to her. 

 

Of course that wasn’t true, every time Eliza glared at her a small piece of her shriveled like a grape in the sun.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Supergirl stared directly into his camera, before deciding something and stopping. She stopped, in mid-flight, tearing through the thin metal frame of the airplane wing. At this point, Max was ready to curse, for the past few weeks he had been sending things at Supergirl only to be duped at every opportunity.

 

All he knew was she was far more intelligent than Lane ever gave her credit for, her brain was so far removed from human impulse it was impossible for him to trick her.

 

…

 

Max gasped, that was it! He wouldn’t trick her into anything. No, he would make Supergirl do all the work for him.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kara, where are you from?” Eliza asked softly.

 

They were making dinner, Eliza had told Alex to invite the woman who saved her life over. That was before she found out Kara was an alien. 

 

_ ‘Someone’s coming for Clark.’ _ Rang around her brain. Alex would never disclose who was after Clark, but it was too much of a coincidence for her that Kara appeared nearly exactly at the same time.

 

She was waiting for the confirmation, the Planet Krypton as Mon-El spat out when they found Clark.

 

Kara looked at her, her blue eyes were bright and her smile was infectious. She was almost the poster child for the Girl Scouts or everything that was good and human.

 

“National City Dr. Danvers,” Kara answered as she diced the onions without crying.

 

In another world, she would have been jealous of that, but now she was a mother trying to protect her son.

 

“No I mean…” Before she could finish the sentence Kara looked up, smile gone.

 

“Krypton. Like Clark.” Her voice came out in a whisper.

 

“Did you know him there?” Eliza pressed on.

 

“He is the son of Jor-El, head of the Kryptonian Council. I never ranked high enough to know him.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With all of her cards near her chest, Cat started watching, recording all the minute details of Kara Richer. The young blonde ate, but only “snacks” in well spaced out intervals. A chocolate bar here, a cookie there, some fruit before lunch and a pastry after.

 

Cat did the math after one day, and the lower end of Kara’s calorie consumption just at CatCo was somewhere near 1,000 calories. She knew Kara ate breakfast, sometimes when Kara was running late she would have a lunch bag. On average that would be around 1,000 calories. Kara’s lunches were the talk of the company, sometimes averaging an entire pizza. 

 

So estimating Kara’s total caloric intake per day was about 5,000 calories, on par with big prey animals. And that was assuming she didn’t eat dinner.

 

Everything was falling into place, the never-ending energy. The rapid pickup, even her interest in alien news. Kara was Supergirl. Kara was an alien. It made sense that the only assistant that could ever satisfy her was an alien. 

 

It wasn’t right for Cat to keep Supergirl to herself. Humanity needed Kara more than she needed someone who knew how to make a latte and arrange her schedule. She could easily find assistants to fill Kara’s place and even install a cafe cart next to her office if she liked. However, other people couldn’t replace their loved ones with memories no matter how hard they tried. 

 

So, with a heavy heart, she wrote up Kara Richter’s severance package.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

With the new fabrics the material scientists had made, they created another uniform for Kara, who took it without a word. She hadn’t been talking since dinner with the Danvers’, except to tell Alex that it was a lovely dinner and it wasn’t her fault.

 

“Clark just triggered some memories, that’s all.” She had said, before mysteriously becoming scarce.

 

She would reappear in the nick of time when Mon-El’s brashness was about to get him killed only to disappear again. After a month Alex finally approached her before Kara could leave after saving Mon-El.

 

“Hey, Hank wants to have a meeting tomorrow,” Alex said, her eyes looking down at the spot Mon-El left.

 

Supergirl hummed. “Okay.” She shrugged.

 

“Would, would you like to join us for game night tomorrow?”

 

“Okay.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Cat almost rolled her eyes. Supergirl had gone through another wardrobe change, her third in three months. This time, in an almost childish, patriotic, girlish sense, Supergirl changed her clothing to a blue long sleeve shirt, conservative red skirt, and high heeled boots.

 

Apparently dressing exactly like the other “superhero” in town, Mon-El, was totally not her thing. It had been three days since she had given Kara the severance papers, Kara had been quite the entire time she explained herself. Since then Kara had been scarce, using the last of her paid time off. Today though, or tonight, she had a visitor.

 

“Cat.” 

 

Somehow, under her mask of indifference, Supergirl managed to express all her hatred of the world in a single syllable. It was terrifying but sparked her curiosity like a bloodhound on a trail. What in the world could make Supergirl hate?

 

Kara, even after being her assistant for nearly two years, had never been rallied above a soft groan.

 

“Supergirl.” She cocked an eyebrow. This was the beginning of a very fascinating story.

 

Supergirl crossed her arms, staring off into the distance.

 

“If I were to throw you off the balcony, and all you had was my word I would catch you, would you trust me?”

 

Cat blinked.

 

“I am not quite following Supergirl.” She managed to stay neutral throughout but there was always something fundamentally disturbing about seeing the real side of Supergirl.

 

It was like when she watched Carter learn Santa isn't real. 

 

Supergirl turned, an in a split moment they were on the shores of a sunny tropical paradise. Cat walked, it was real sand and she almost fell of her high heels. Supergirl hovered over the ground, her frown deepening and doing the best impression of an Angry God that Cat had ever seen. That bloke who played Thor could learn a thing or two.

 

“First, Cat, let me address something.” Supergirl zoomed off and returned as Kara Richter, mild-mannered, slightly ditzy blonde reporter. “If you sign that severance package, I'll toss you off your balcony.”

 

Cat was not surprised, at all. 

 

“Kara, it isn’t right…” Kara held up her hand.

 

“Wait,” She cut in. “Let me explain something first. If you fire me, you kill Kara Richter. I don’t have any marketable skills, and I’ve been working on the side to get myself through college.”

 

“ I don’t have a degree, and as you know I need to eat nearly seven thousand calories, you were off by two thousand by the way. Very good estimate. I would be Supergirl twenty-four seven, but the Government doesn’t think it's a good idea to financially support its heroes. Mon-El has a free pass because he is also an undercover agent at an alien bar.”

 

Supergirl stood in Cat’s personal bubble. Her breath tickled, it was warm, like standing next to a furnace. 

 

“Instead they give me moral support, but that includes constant tricks and ruses to see how useful I can be to them. And if I suffer who cares because I am Supergirl! Girl of Steel! I Don’t Get to Exist Cat, unless I exist as Kara Richter. How selfish of humanity is that?”

 

“You need to help people.” Cat offered, rethinking the package. Maybe she could add in some money to help offset Kara's food bill.

 

“Help the people who want to use me?” Kara ran her hand through her hair. “All I wanted was to find my little cousin to make my parents happy! And what, now I’m a slave with no will of her own unless it suits the government? Please, Cat, don’t take away what little freedom I have left. If you fire me I have to die.” 

 

“I’m sorry Kara.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kara looked almost high when she walked into Alex’s apartment with cookies. Today there were only four agents present, James, Winn, herself, and Vasquez. Everyone else had been skirting away from Kara after the meeting with J’onn. It wasn’t that bad though, J’onn only called it to check up on Supergirl, who had been in a massively fantastic mood since that morning.

 

They cut the meeting short, and Supergirl stayed at the DEO until game night. Once everyone else left, Alex pulled Kara aside before she could leave.

 

“Hey, Kara are you alright?” She asked, leaning against the wall while Kara sighed.

 

“No, I got fired.” Kara shrugged. “And, then I got kicked out.”

 

“Oh I’m sorry.” Alex leaned in for a hug which Kara melted into. “Hey stay with me? I have an extra room.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Supergirl, for all her alien habits, couldn’t resist the very human urge to swing her legs off the ledge.

 

Cat looked over all of the materials Supergirl had given her. There was enough blackmail there to literally, “Clean the Swamp”. Everyone, from the president, down to city mayors were implicated in the documents provided. 

 

“Are you okay Cat?”

 

Cat shook her head.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

In his head, while he sat in his cell deep underground, it worked out. Max sighed as he sat down, not in defeat, but just to rest. What went wrong?

 

Okay, so he did shoot missiles at the city which was an act of terrorism, but they were all aimed at Supergirl, who just flew straight up until the missiles detonated in mid-air. In minutes Max found himself ripped away from his monitoring screens and inside of the cage he currently found himself. And the worst thing was, Supergirl looked so sad for him as if putting him away also hurt her.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kara Richter had no background in STEM, no patents or breakthroughs in research. All she had was the word of Cat Grant, which Lena was loathed to admit was enough to hire her. She prided herself in a meritocratic hiring process, but in reality, it was a plutocratic hiring process with a meritocratic weed out. Most of the time.

 

Sink or Swim as her mother said before her untimely demise with her brother while flying to Ireland. 

 

Lena decided she would have Kara review her paper on space travel before she would put Kara on anything else. 

 

“Kara, edit these papers, here in my office,” Lena said. “This is your interview, if you can get these papers edited without help I will hire you.”

 

Kara took a deep breath before opening the packet and smiling. Within the hour Kara had diagrams and calculations written out to create a vehicle that could travel for galaxies without stopping. Lena was so in awe of the pure mathematical genius of it all she didn’t realize the hour had passed and Eve had emailed her several times about upcoming meetings. Kara offer.d her the paper to look at, and Lena greedily snapped up the opportunity. Once she could pry herself away from the papers, she signed the contract Kara brought with her.

 

Then Kara took out a thick black marker and drew an “x” straight through her lines of calculations and pictures. Lena almost lamented the waste, until Kara looked up and smiled and gave Lena all these funny feelings in her stomach.

 

“Ms. Luthor, I am very willing to let you off the planet,” Kara said softly. “However, I need your help with something. I don’t want a job. I want access to your facilities, and in return, I will give you things beyond your wildest dreams.”

 

Good Lord was she a gay mess.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kara was a great roommate, and she always paid her rent on time. Alex was worried of course, but Kara explained that she had a severance package and was teaching Math on the side so she could easily cover her rent for the next few months while she went job hunting.

 

She had insisted on paying for half, refusing to move in until Alex relented. Everyone had been more worried than normal when they realized Supergirl never left the DEO except for food and missions. J’onn was about to get the government to pay Supergirl as an Army Sergeant until Alex stepped in.

 

But, it was strange that Kara was never home before Alex. She left before Alex did, and arrived after her, which made no sense. There were no DEO missions and Kara said she worked online.

 

‘Trust her.’ Alex thought. ‘But, she’s always been extremely shady.’

 

‘She saved your life.’


	6. The rising sun

“Kar…” Alex paused, the name dying on her lips.

She had burst through their apartment door to tell her that her parents and Clark were coming over in a few hours. She had wanted to give the blonde time to prepare, but for some reason they were already here and now all Alex could do was give Kara a chance to escape. However she was deep in prayer, facing the setting sun in a kneeling position, her hands pressed against her thighs.

It’s golden rays were stained red, and if Alex could believe she would understand the myth of the dying sun. Its divine blood seemed splattered against the darkening sky.

‘I pray for the ones who cannot pray for me. I pray for the ones who have not finished praying for me. I pray for the ones who cannot return to pray with me. I pray for the ones who will not return to pray for me I pray that we may be one again in Rao’s divine light.’

Alex asked her once why she was singing, Kryptonian didn’t have many hard constants like German and the ones it had were generally softened by some grammar rules that were hard to follow. Kara had smiled and shook her head, it was a chant, a Kryptonian song would have flowed much faster and incorporated more tones and accents. Whatever that meant, she was a Doctor of Biology not Linguistics.

‘Rao give me strength to face the night until your morning light comes.’

Alex never understood the words but she understood the magnitude and always let Kara finish praying with as few intrusions as possible. When she was done Kara stood and turned around, not at all surprised by the Danvers.

“Thank you,” She said in English. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

Surprisingly it was Eliza who spoke. “No, no this is your home. We’re sorry we’re intruding.”

Kara’s grin grew and she hugged everyone, including Alex of course, and then started explaining the prayers to an eager Jeremiah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They struck a deal, Kara would work part-time for Cat as a “Coordinator”, which mean Kara could leave at a moments notice to help people. In reality the only difference now was the fact Cat had to whisper for her lattes, which was fine and all but it made her feel like a madwoman.

But it was the least she could do for Kara, who went out on a limb and hacked the government just to give her a juicy story as penance for taking her to the Caribbean without consent. And it did lessen the guilt on her mind since now Kara was free to come and go as long as her papers were at Cat’s desk by 5pm every night.

A new development was also Kara’s new habit of coming after hours to “hang out” with Cat as Supergirl. Since Supergirl did not officially work for Cat, she allowed it, and Supergirl did make good company. Now she was making herself peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, eating them as she used the entire loaf and jars.

“Krypton was just as far backwards as Earth is, but light years forward.” Supergirl lamented. “We have achieved an almost pure meritocracy but are blinder than you are to climate change.”

Cat offered her a small smile while she finally connected the last few dots. “Don’t worry Supergirl.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey,” Lena looked up from her notes at a grinning Kara. “You forgot something.”

Lena frowned, what in the world was Kara talking about? The blonde was no help, she was fighting back a girlish giggle that if Lena saw on anyone else she would have attacked. But it was Kara, and she couldn't get mad. In fact, it made her really happy.

Kara laughed, losing her battle and pointing at a plus sign.

“You forgot a minus!” She sang, laughter gushing from her lips.

Lena frowned and scanned the entire thing. What, how could… ah. She found it, a few lines back she made the classic mistake of making the derivative of cosx into sinx. Lena smiled and shook her head, her eyes were burning and her body was catching up to the strain of sitting and mathing for hours on end.

“Want lunch?” Lena asked.

Kara gasped and nodded her head. “I thought you would never ask!”

God that smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

El shuddered. He prayed, he knew and understood Rao’s command, but it was still hard to swallow. It was a test of his faith if he could hold the corrupted and unholy rock without straying from the good light of Rao. He knew he could, Rao strengthens him, but the ominous red glow terrified him. It mocked Rao, mimicking his gracious light but perverting it into an angry red color.

Yet, Rao had created it, and Rao demanded it back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex’s phone rang non-stop for the past half hour. She had wanted to answer it, if anything just to get rid of the buzzing, but she was in the middle of a meeting. Meetings at the DEO had a strict, “No Pause” clause. No one was allowed to step out or take a call until the end of the meeting.

Once J’onn had finally released them Alex took out her phone with shaking hands. Her heart tore through her chest as she noted the thirty-five missed calls from Eliza, and ten following messages.

[ Get here now Alexandrea!]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eliza was about to cry. She had been so wrong about Kara, so wrong about her intentions. The blonde had dropped everything, rushing to Midvale to console a terrified Clark. She had been scared out of her mind when Kara broke through the front door and roared, “Where is he?”.

Kara looked up stairs and bolted, Eliza following hot on her heels. Well, for a human anyway.

Clark was in his room, hands pressed against his head and lips pursed into a silent scream. Kara’s eyes were so gentle and soft, Eliza almost thought she was his mother. The blonde sat down a few feet away from Clark, Eliza watched in utter confusion as Clark slowly dropped his hands. When she shuffled over to sit down, his heads went straight back up and Kara’s face broke into a pained expression.

Eliza mouthed a “sorry”, and Kara offered her a tired smile.

“His super hearing is kicking in.” Kara mouthed back before turning back to Clark.

From there Eliza watched as Kara’s lips moved but not a single sound escaped… that she could hear. Clark however….

After another few minutes, Clark dropped his hands again and was breaking out into a timid smile.

“Okay Clark, can I speak more loudly?” Kara asked in a whisper, sort of similar to those ASMR videos that had been floating around the internet.

Clark flinched but nodded.

“Alright, just tell me if I get too loud.” Kara relaxed, shifting her position into a more comfortable side lean. “Your dad on Krypton is just like your dad here on Earth, he is a scientist. His name was Jor-El, and he liked looking out at the stars and making ships that could travel there.”

“My dad made spaceships?” Clark whispered back, his voice slightly louder than Kara’s.

Kara smiled, nodding. “Yes, that’s how I got here.”

“What was he like?”

The small frown on Kara’s face was masked by her bubbly voice. “He was a great man.”

Later, once Alex finally made it home, Kara pulled Eliza aside.

“You’ll want to get him lead lined glasses. Don’t worry, lead doesn’t affect Kryptonians, it will help with his vision.” Kara said, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen out of nowhere. “And giving him a sound canceling headset also works too, but it's better if you practice picking out sounds. Try focusing him on your heartbeat or a whisper.”

“Thank you, Kara.” Eliza grabbed the blonde into a hug, that the blonde returned.

“Of course Eliza, and to be honest I like Jeremiah better.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cat noticed the almost blinding glow of Supergirl’s already tan skin. In the night light, Supergirl almost looked radiant, like a female version of Apollo.

“Are you radioactive Supergirl?” She asked, half out of fear and the other half curiosity. “Because I wouldn’t like to deal with you in a Hazmat Suit.”

Supergirl bit her lip and then shook her head. “It’s just excess sunlight.”

“Too much sunlight causes skin cancer.” Cat backed away, but she pressed a glass of water up to her lips to hide her smile.

Supergirl gave her a goofy grin, before handing her a piece of paper.

“An exclusive, from Lena Luthor,” Supergirl said. “She really likes Kara. Thank you, Miss Grant.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally done with the set up! Woooo, now's the time for the Evil Kara tag to mean something, muwahaha.


	7. Boom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are reasons why Superheroes need to keep their secrets. However, Supergirl didn't seem to get the memo, and now Kara has to pay the price.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Some violence in the chapter, if you don't want to read the violent part just skip to the bottom note. I'll put a line breaker if you want to read up to before the violent part. Also, I apologize for the speech, I tried to make it sound okay, but I'm not really an inspirational type. 
> 
> On a side note, thank you for the love guys! We're almost at 100 subs! Woooo! Happy Holidays to all y'all!

No one knew how the spill had happened. Kara had her suspicions, and Cat had her own. At CatCo there was no opportunity, Kara had her own floor and she had the sneaking suspicion that Kara had become an expert of disguise over the years. There was no way anyone at CatCo would have leaked the information unless Kara did it on purpose. But, thin layer of barely concealed rage told Cat enough, Kara had never meant for the secret to get out. 

 

Luthor, she knew for all the hate Lena got for her last name, was sealed tighter than a Navy boat. They had come to a mutual understanding when Cat published the fluff piece and Lena had made a “small” donation to one of Cat’s charities. 

 

And besides, she had a sneaking suspicion that Lena was in love. 

 

That left the incompetent fools at the government agency Supergirl frequented. Really, Kara should have learned by now that the government wasn’t to be trusted, but nevertheless, this was a problem Cat would solve. Because even though she would never have said it out loud, but she had come to enjoy the company of the nearly bipolar blonde alien.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Max had finally been released. After all a fake government agency couldn’t do anything to him legally, and General Lane had been helpful enough to get him out. He finally had a perfected plan, with the blessings of the General who was willing to turn a blind eye to the cause.

 

He had made a trap, kidnapping an alien this time. It worked perfectly, his drones watched as Supergirl flew around the perimeter while Mon-El did all of the heavy lifting. However, unfortunately for the resident Daxamite, the world knew about his lead allergy.

 

The bullets flew in a barrage, and Supergirl had a choice to make. Either save both the Daxamite and alien, yes Max had felt charitable, or let them get shredded by the bullets. He expects her to use a touch of superspeed, or maybe laser vision. Something measurable.

 

What he got was disappointing, but still very useful. Supergirl didn’t notice the first bullet that pierced through Mon-El’s shoulder. The screaming of her wounded companion finally brought the full attention of Supergirl to his trap and she stood a few feet away from Mon-El with her back to the gun.

 

Deciding it was the best time to spring his attack, Max pressed his shiny red button and triggered his well-placed machine gun. It blasted away at a modified 2,000 RPM, enough to kill all three of them thousands of times over if they were human. Or Daxamite. But, they didn’t die.

 

Supergirl stood there scolding Mon-El about everything as the bullets bounced off the skin of her back. By the time he ran out of bullets, Supergirl’s naked back was exposed, the fabric of her suit gave way some time ago. Except for some gunpowder, it looked untouched, like what he thought a tanned woman’s back would. Because he’s seen many of those, in real life. Not on a screen.

 

_ ‘Bulletproof skin?’ _ He wrote down before the camera feed cut. Figures.

 

By the next day, all major news outlets had a copy of the video.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Alex grit her teeth. She had the entire DEO working on the case. One of the smaller tabloids, a conspirtual one called “The Moon”, ran an article that almost perfectly linked Kara to Supergirl. There were a few inconsistances and blatantly wrong connections, but it was soild work.

 

Sure, they all should have known better and had Kara cover her tracks better, but Alex never expected someone to spend nearly their entire life for the last few months to stalk Kara and piece together fragments. But then again, she knew what people were capable of and this wasn’t to far fetched.

 

Currently Winn had bots monitoring every single social media outlet, scanning for anything related to their case. So far it was creating a small buzz, really only stuck to small fringe communities not yet making its way to the mainstream news. Of course the universe had made the problem worse, nearly 90% of all the known anti-alien groups on the internet had seen/spread the article.

 

Supergirl herself had read the article, and promptly burned through the screen. Hank had not been happy, but the more pressing issue was keeping the nearly ready to explode Kryptonian calm.

 

“How dare he?” She seethed, her eyes still glowing red. Alex made the quiet sign of evacuation while Hank confronted Supergirl.

 

“Supergirl calm down.”

 

She trained her bright red eyes on him, Alex could feel the heat nearly five feet away. It was nearing December, and while California never got cold it did get chilly deep underground. 

 

“Calm down? This man has violated my privacy for months, and has blown my secret to the entire world! How should I calm down Hank!”

 

Hank managed to keep a face of absolute calm. “Supergirl, what is done is done, but we will bring him to justice. Mark my words. You burning through our equipment will not help us. What you need to do is take a few days off as Supergirl. Stay calm, we will take care of you.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The next day it was all over the headlines, except for CatCo who was holding out for an official interview with the Girl of Steel herself. Cat had almost been thrown off guard when Kara herself showed up the next day.

 

“Your latte, Miss Grant.” Kara said, smiling.

 

It brought back waves of nostalgia that Cat never thought she could have. It reminded her of a time when Kara seemed less threatening, of a time when the government looked less disgusting. She almost missed the time before she had all the information in the world to incriminate the entire United States Government. Almost, not quite though.

 

“Kiera I want an interview with Supergirl stat!” She snapped, grabbing the coffee.

 

Kara took a deep breath and went on her way. 

 

Kara never got winded.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Are you Supergirl?” Lena asked the moment they were isolated in her lab on the fourth floor. She asked Kara to not disclose this to anyone, and Kara only gave her her word.

 

It was the first time Lena’s trust had ever been properly placed.

 

Kara scowled, her pen pressing so far into the paper she was working on it tore straight through. The veins of her hand bulged out, her knuckles turning white as she tried to crush the cheap pen in her hand.

 

“If you read the papers, I am.” She answered drily.

 

Lena wished she could take it all back, Kara looked awful. And she remembered her own share of harassment from the newspapers. Kara had been so kind to ignore any of the bad press from Edge controlled outlets, not asking for a single answer.

 

Now she had done the exact opposite at the first headline.

 

“I’m sorry Kara,” Lena said, trying to meet Kara’s blue eyes. “I just wanted to hear the truth from you, no some tabloid. I’m sorry.”

 

Before she could completely sell her soul in apology Kara cut in and shook her head.

 

Kara offered her a tired smile. “Yes, I am. Don’t worry Lena, I’m not mad at you.”

 

Lena blinked, there were so many more questions she desperately wanted to ask. But she held back, she already asked too much of Kara. 

 

“Okay, thank you, Kara. Let’s get back to math?”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Over the next few hours, the newspapers caught the story and blew it into a raging inferno. News reporters going as far mainstream as the Daily Planet were adding fuel. Lois Lane had dared to publish another article that filled in the holes that The Moon couldn’t patch. She even added in a backhanded comment about CatCo and Cat Grant in the same article.

 

Supergirl had stayed quite as she watched the charts. They could do nothing but watch as it spread everywhere like a virus. Hank had stopped trying to calm down the Kryptonian, who had taken to watching everything in a silent fury. At the very least she hadn’t destroyed any more equipment, instead, she had taken to sparring with Mon-El.

 

As a precaution, Alex had authorized standby leave for all DEO agents except for an essential few, if Supergirl exploded they needed to be ready.

 

Once Cat published her rebuking response to the other news outlets Supergirl growled and stormed out of the DEO.

 

“No one follow me!” She snapped, walking out.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Lena, have you thought about renewable power?” Kara asked.

 

Lena had, but only for a moment as she overhauled LuthorCorp into L-Corp. There were a few more pressing issues, such as her inheritance and pleasing the not happy shareholders, that was far more important that thinking about how to power L-Corp. But now the shareholders were far to happy about her profits to care, and she had far more free time to dedicate to things like that.

 

“A bit,” She admitted. “But, nowhere nearly enough.”

 

Kara nodded and they went back to work before Lena broke the comfortable silence. She thanked Rao that Kara had forgiven her and returned to her normal happy mood. She couldn't bare it if Kara decided to leave her, and wanted to tell the blonde how much she meant. 

 

“I don’t think it would work.” She said instead, scratching out something on her sheet.

 

At the very least she knew her words would spark Kara’s interest and competitive side. She hadn’t met anyone nearly as competitive as Kara, well in the areas that interested her. Once they played a month-long chess match because neither side wanted to admit defeat. Lena had won, by pure luck because she managed to get Kara to trap her king into a forced checkmate.

 

In the present, Lena could almost feel the glee radiating off the blonde, which she ignored while hiding her own smile. She was quite sure Kara could make something, but challenging the blonde seemed far more fun than asking her. Besides, Kara was hot when she got competitive. 

 

Kara started coughing to get Lena to look at her, but the raven-haired CEO decided her scratch paper for a more efficient oxygen maker was more interesting. It wasn’t, but it lead Kara to desperate measures. Soon Kara started waving a paper, the little “whoops” almost made Lena laugh and look but she held firm.

 

When Kara couldn’t take anymore, she bounded over and tapped Lena’s shoulder.

 

“How much do you want to bet that I can?” Kara asked.

 

Lena smirked and looked around. “If you can, I will give you five orders of potstickers.”

 

Kara gasped, her eyes widening to a comical size.

 

“But if you can’t, then I guess I’ll have h'orderves ready for our annual Christmas party.”

 

“No! No one will eat them!”

 

“Then you better be right Kara.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Alex had learned to use a sniper rifle early in her DEO career. It never felt right, she never wanted to be exposed to the elements, hoping and praying for the perfect shot. She would rather be on the ground, handgun ready and chase down criminals than snipe them off.

 

Even now she hated the idea, she was jittery and she wanted to be near Kara.

 

It had taken nearly three days for the first death threats from the anti-alien factions to arrive. CatCo had buffed up its security and the “FBI” lended its support, leading to three DEO agents on the ground, one in the building, and Alex on the roof.

 

Kara had been calm, after her initial burst of rage. She had refused to listen to any of Hank’s suggestions and instead decided to keep going to work. That lead to the detail, and Cat Grant had been surprisingly accommodating.

 

“Alex, I have to work,” Kara answered after explaining she had been rehired by Cat. “My savings are almost gone.”

 

Alex wanted to protest, she easily earned enough to help Kara out, and Hank wasn’t unreasonable, but she knew the look on Kara’s face. She would rather die than accept charity, which frustrated Alex to no end. 

 

“How is it fair you get to live like that, and I don’t?” Replayed in her mind as she trained her rifle. “Besides, I’m bulletproof.”

 

She was loathed to admit it, but Kara was right.

  
  


**(Warning no reading if you don't wanna, skip to the bottom for TL;DR)**

 

Cat saw it on the television first. When she was a child that was an achievement, something to brag about among school friends on the playground. That was how she learned about JFK, the attempt on Ronald Reagan, and thankfully the attacks on the towers. 

 

But now, she wanted to scream. 

 

The first sign of trouble was the rapidly growing red stain on Kara’s perfectly ironed, starched, and possibly bleached white button up. It grew so fast that it caught her attention, her eyes tracking the motion faster than her brain could comprehend. The first, and worst thought, in her head was “children are watching this livestream.”

 

The imbeciles holding Kara down dropped her like a hot potato as if their hands were being scalded by their sins. The two holding Kara looked at each other while the third dropped his weapon and bolted.

 

***

 

Unfortunately the day started off well. Too well. Kara had arrived to work unmolested, something Cat prayed about to any and every god. She even broke out her Bible and headed to church on Sunday, if anything to appease the universe and give that to Kara.

 

Today was the first day of CatCo’s YouTube channel, James had spearheaded the division and gave Cat fully edited videos which aren't awful. Today was supposed to be a live question and answer session for James to aspiring photographers.

 

They were having a few issues with the stream, and when James finally got it running three people dressed in hoodies, jeans, and an unmistakable mask broke through her elevator. How in the world did they make it through the damn FBI and security?

 

They screamed for a “Kara Richter”, and Cat didn’t know if she could blame her employees for parting like the Red Sea. 

 

“We are the Agents of Liberty, here to free the world of this alien menace!” They declared, three voices in unison.

 

Two “Agents” of Liberty grabbed Kara, who had been quiet the entire time. She looked at Cat, who could do nothing but helplessly look at the screen from under her desk with James. 

 

“Now you’ll have nowhere to hide Supergirl!” A masculine voice called out.

 

The thunderous crack of the gun was deafening, but Cat couldn’t make herself look away. The bullet tore through the soft tissue of Kara’s shoulder, lodging itself in someone’s desk. Blood began pouring out a minute later, dripping everywhere.

 

Cat wanted to scream, James’ phone appeared out of nowhere and he began whispering instructions. The terrorists looked at each other, each obviously new to the job. The idea of taking another human life was so revolting to them, while the idea of taking an alien life had meant nothing. She wanted to spit in their faces. She wanted to burn them into the ground. 

 

“You’ve shot a human!” Cat heard herself scream. 

 

They looked up, the utter depth of their sin slowly sinking in. 

 

Before the shooter could escape the window shattered open and he crumpled. Sniper. Fucking finally.

 

The other two panicked and began shouting at each other. Somehow in the mix, they managed to accidentally throw Kara out the window, with one of them. The last one standing was promptly tackled by a furious CatCo employee, Shaw, while the FBI finally flooded the place.

 

Down below Cat could hear the screams, and then two thuds. A car alarm sounded off in the distance. Some FBI agent took her out of her office, and another cut the live stream. By the time they were down there, the body bags were being zipped up.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Really she thought she would have stronger emotions since she had just killed a man. Woman. Person.

 

Even though they were absolutely in the wrong they were still another human being and Alex wanted to feel something. Guilt. Shame. Disgust.

 

Instead, and she wondered if this was worse, she felt nothing except for slight panic. Kara was Supergirl right? How could they shoot her?

 

She knew Supergirl couldn’t bleed, gods couldn’t bleed, but she watched with her very eyes as Kara bled and fell. It was why she was so slow to react, the growing stain on Kara’s shirt was so abnormal, so wrong that it crashed Alex’s brain and slowed down her reaction. Once she could think again, she aimed and shot.

 

She killed a man.

 

They killed Kara.

 

Kara was dead.

 

She quickly made her way down the roof, slipping into her NCPD gear that was borrowed from the local unit. Quickly she zipped up Kara’s body bag and got her into a disguised DEO vehicle. Mon-El was waiting inside, his own eyes red and face ashy. 

 

The drive back was quiet as they stewed in their own thoughts and grief. Thankfully the sound of the engine and things banging around was loud enough to mask their pain.

 

And the sound of fabric being punched. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“I want you all to know, those who tuned in to our live stream and those who found out through other means, that CatCo was attacked. We were attacked by those who decided their hatred meant more than logic, reason, and life itself.

 

CatCo will close, and I ask my fellow reporters to take a moment of silence for the young woman who lost her life today. 

 

I ask you, everyone, to join me in my fight.

 

We have a job to do, resist the temptation to throw fingers. Resist the temptation to attack each other. We must stand united against the hatred and xenophobia that caused these people to think they have the right to murder a woman in cold blood.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Cat closed CatCo after her impromptu speech nearly two hours afterward. Officially anyway, since she wouldn’t dare let anyone back into the building. In fact, she closed CatCo media for a week of silence and even set up a free therapy of any kind to all of her employees. There were no medical bills, everyone had been unscathed, but she knew better than to assume the damage ran skin deep.

 

She hugged Shaw, and gave him a week off so he could take his family on a well-earned vacation. The tall bald man’s eyes were full of tears. While Supergirl was at best a pessimistic optimist, Kara Richter had been a ray of pure sunlight at CatCo. She would be dearly missed.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Lena hadn’t been paying much attention to the news for the past three days. She had been working non-stop since Kara left on a secret project, trying to surprise the blonde. After the twenty two hour mark in her lab, Lena decided it was too quiet and turned on the only television left over from when Lex owned the company. 

 

“The tragic death of Kara Richter…”

 

What.

 

Lena’s head whipped so fast she swore she heard a vertebrate crack. On the news was the picture of Kara on the staff of CatCo’s website. She made fun of Kara for that, since it made Kara look like a big doofus, but secretly loved it. 

 

Her heart dropped and her throat burned. It was as if she had just found out about her mother and Lex again, only this time it hurt so much more. Before she could begin crying, however, something impossible happened.

 

“It was really tragic.” A familiar voice agreed.

 

What?

 

“Kara?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TL;DR
> 
> Kara gets shot and thrown off the highest floor of CatCo by the Agents of Liberty. Alex takes the body to the DEO.


	8. The Base Drops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's dead, but alive?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!

“No.” Kara shook her head. “Well, yes and no.”

 

Lena frowned, first Kara died and now she was making no sense! How was this possible? But, then again she didn’t see the dead in person.

 

“Kara Richter is dead.” She answered, looking back at the screen. “It’s only Supergirl now. Or Kara Zor-El to close friends.”

 

Kara gave Lena a look, and Lena wasn’t sure what to make of it, so she spoke instead.

 

“Kara Zor-El.” Lena tried the name out. It sounded nice.

 

Kara smiled and nodded.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Mon-El had been less annoying than usual, even respectfully carrying Kara’s body bag into the DEO. Alex hadn’t noticed until she saw him gently placing down the black bag onto their examination table and giving her funeral rites. It must have been Kryptonian because she had never heard Kara speak like that and Jax-Ur was mumbling along.

 

He was so tender, almost as if she were a Daxamite too.

 

Once the funeral rites, or at least this part of them, were finished Mon-El stepped back and Jax-Ur snapped on his rubber gloves.

 

“Did you hear that?” Mon-El asked, looking around.

 

“No?” He said, and they both turned to Alex.

 

She shook her head and they shrugged. Before Jax would unzip the bag, he paused.

 

“I need my tools!” He exclaimed, bolting out of the room at superspeed.

 

Alex rolled her eyes as she watched him leave. Jax-Ur was a scientist on Krypton before joining a space team sent out by Krypton years ago. He invented many things with the DEO in exchange for shelter, food, and unlimited funding. Many of his inventions were being used by the military, and some of his older inventions were modified for civilian use.

 

They weren’t really inventions, more like adaptations from Kryptonian technology, but they were amazing all the same. However, somehow he was as scatterbrained as a tornado, whipping around this way and that not sure where he was going.

 

It took him a minute to gather his tools and set up. All around him were assorted pieces of kryptonite, which was synthesized pieces of Krypton’s radioactive core. Back on Krypton, it was used as their form of lead for bullets.

 

Here Jax-Ur used it to cut open dead aliens. Apparently, it cut through alien flesh very well.

 

Jax-Ur finally unzipped the bag, and Alex wanted to look away out of respect for Kara’s body. But she had to watch, in morbid gripping curiosity that refused to let her turn the other way. It seemed to take forever for the bag to undo, and when it finally did Alex screamed.

 

Kara bolted upright, gasping for breath. Mon-El roared and flew backward, almost crashing into a wall. Jax-Ur even tried to stab the reanimated body. Kara quickly grabbed his hand and put an end to that idea.

 

“Guys,” She gasped as if she hadn’t died. Hadn’t been shot. Hadn’t been thrown off a damn building and plummeted. “These bags stink!”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Cat gave Supergirl no time to explain, she could wait for that later. Right now she needed a hug, confirmation that this wasn’t an alcohol induced dream. Because if it was a dream then she didn’t want to wake up quite yet. If it wasn’t, then she wanted the security only touching could give.

 

Supergirl chuckled, laughed, whatever you would call what was making the soothing vibrations coming from her chest.

 

“I’m so sorry Cat,” Supergirl whispered into her hair. “I never meant to scare you, but we didn’t have time to talk.”

 

No one, especially not her mother, had ever decided to apologize to Cat.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“Care to explain Kara?” Lena asked, nodding toward the news still playing in the background.

 

Kara gave her a lopsided grin, a cheeky grin that reminded Lena of summers in Dublin watching the street urchins wreck havoc on upstanding citizens. It was all in good fun, but the mischievous fire was still in Kara’s eyes. She took a seat on the table they did math on together, and pulled something out of her freshly pressed black slacks.

 

It was a folded piece of paper that she carefully unfolded and handed over to Lena.

 

“First, potstickers.” Kara smiled. “I think you owe me ten orders of potstickers.”

 

Lena cocked her head. “Ten? I remember I said five.”

 

“Well, look.” She gave Lena the paper and Lena almost rolled her eyes.

 

Printed in Kara’s biggest handwriting were the words, “Giant-butt Steam Boiler.”.

 

“Kara!” Lena burst out into laughter, dropping the second sheet of paper.

 

The second paper was far more promising, a very detailed sketch of a steam generator at the bottom of L-Corp with a million of hand drawn pipes and their functions. It wasn’t efficient, and required Lena to hire at least twenty people just to service the thing, but it made excellent use of solar power. And, she admitted, was a great way of making new jobs available to heat proof aliens.

A third paper was behind the second and that one Lena liked very much. It was a detailed sketch of how to most efficiently place solar panels, using earth technology, on the rooftop. There was even wiring dedicated to replacing all of the floor with solar panels covered in a glass-like polymer to maximize solar capture.

 

On the bottom were massive batteries that Kara wrote, “For another time”, since Lena was quite sure batteries of those size weren’t within human reach yet. At least for Kara’s specification.

 

“Kara this is amazing!” Lena gasped, her hand quickly searching for her phone. “But, did you take my steam generator template?”

 

Kara grinned and shrugged. “Maybe.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Jax had her under a solar bed in a heartbeat, Mon-El had to carry Alex because they were all using their superspeed and no human could keep up.

 

It had been one of the things Alex had noticed that was the same, yet absolutely different between all three superpowered beings. Jax-Ur used his superspeed as an extension of himself, when he tried using it beyond that he got lost. Mon-El used it as a crutch, using it to aid him when his raw strength failed him.

 

Kara used her superspeed as if it were a weapon from her secret arsenal.

 

(She finally cracked, using it to save humans from the Hellgrammite that gave Mon-El the slip)

 

Kara gave her a gentle smile and a soft squeeze, hand only since Jax-Ur had her confined to bed rest. Once she could she was going to hug the life out of Kara. 

 

“You did good Alex.” Kara said. “You stopped a terrorist.”

 

Alex wasn’t so sure, but she took what she could get and squeezed back. There was a pulse this time. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“Cat, I want you to publish this.” Supergirl said, handing her a piece of folded paper.

 

That meant somewhere on her suit Supergirl had a pocket, but where? How did she manage to fit that in? And for the record, how did she keep things in there?

 

Cat nodded, and opened the paper. Written inside was a short paragraph, Supergirl’s official statement on the murder of Kara Richter.

 

“I guess this means I’ll have to hire another assistant.” Cat sighed, putting the paper on her table.

 

Personally, she could care less, all that mattered was the fact that Kara was alive and sound.

 

“I have a few recommendations.” Supergirl smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“Okay, so how did you survive?” Lena asked, sitting down next to Kara on the table.

 

There were two perfectly good, and honestly insulted, chairs being ignored at the ends of the table. Kara was using one to hold all of her blueprints on solar cells while Lena used the other to hold her blueprints for upcoming L-Corp projects.

 

“Very long story, have Jess clear your schedule,” Kara answered, scooting to turn towards Lena. “Also, can you ask Jess if she has any assistant friends who need a job?”

 

Lena typed up the email. “Done.”

 

“Alright…”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  


“Kryptonians are able to metabolize sunlight in their cells which leads to superpowers. However, these cells must be recharged by direct contact with solar energy. If a Kryptonian were to encounter a situation so stressful that they used all of their stored metabolized solar energy, they would lose their superpowers and return to their normal kryptonian state.

 

There are two ways to recharge, the first is to let the body soak up sun rays and restore itself. The second is to jumpstart the cells through an intense rush of adrenaline.”

 

Jax-Ur droned on and on about the cellular nature of Kryptonians. Alex had tuned out and Mon-El had quickly found crimes to stop. Kara was nodding along, though Alex had the feeling that she was only being polite.

 

Hank had check in early on, leaving once Kara assured him of her well being and Jax-Ur starting his lecture. Jax-Ur was famous around the DEO for two things. Okay, three. The first was he was an alien, second he was brilliant in his own right, and third, his lectures could put an elephant to sleep.

 

In the middle of his lecture about his so called, “Solar Flares”, as he anointed them, Kara cut in and asked him a few questions. Kara and Jax-Ur were talking in Kryptonian, Alex looked at the wall and began counting the holes in the whitish material. She wasn’t really stuck here, but there were still five hours left in her shift and every other station promised to be just as boring.

At least here she had Kara to talk to once she finished talking to Jax-Ur, whenever that was.

 

_One_

_(Jumpstart cells)_

 

_Two_

_(Adrenaline)_

 

_Three_

_(Her heart almost exploded the time she earned her red pararescue beret in the Air Force. The adrenaline rush was so massive she shook the entire time she walked back to regroup.)_

 

_Four_

_(Kara fell out of the window.)_

 

_Five_

_(Normal Kryptonian state =?= Human?)_

 

_Six_

_(The bullet passed through her, but they threw her out the window.)_

 

_Seven_

_(Oh Fuck, she discharged her cells and got an adrenaline rush when they jumped out of the window.)_

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

There was something about being a cop that made Maggie lose all hope in humanity. The wage wasn’t too bad, she could afford to live on her own and buy some luxuries of Amazon every now and then. Her bilingual pay was also pretty sweet, enough to stash away for plane tickets, and a fully funded retirement and health benefits were awesome.

 

However, there were a thousand other things that Maggie loathed about the job. Corrupt cops who used their badges to break the law “legally”. People maiming strangers for no apparent reason. Hell, even being an agent of the law sucked, some families didn’t deserve to be split apart just because of a mistake made twenty years ago.

 

All she had wanted was to help others, keep them safe in a way she had never felt before.

 

She transferred to National City looking for a change, finding none. But, in the slums, the areas the politicians forget about until they are up for reelection, she saw people not being assholes. People helping each other out, people caring for others, and then sometimes drive-by shootings for fun.

 

So it was good and bad.

 

But when Mon-El crash landed and wiped out a block of the slums, Maggie almost became an Agent of Liberty. Mon-El had, unofficially, killed nearly five hundred people. Politicians and everyone outside the slums turned a blind eye to the massacre when he decided to don tights and “help” National City.

 

Maggie never forgot. Nor did the thousands of people who lost loved ones in the fall.

 

When Supergirl came, Maggie rolled her eyes. It was just another Mon-El. Until she wasn’t. She saved people, leaving the heroics to Mon-El. She appeared out of nowhere, helping out old grandmothers move out heavy furniture. She helped get beloved pets out of a tree. On the anniversary of Mon-El’s arrival she even brought flowers and cleaned up the monument to his sins.

 

Agents had tried to use Mon-El’s crash as a rallying cry, but they didn’t think about Supergirl. The slums were undecided, Supergirl, armed with Cat Grant and Lena Luthor’s support, had brought thousands of jobs back. When the Agents killed Kara Richter, one of their own, they turned against the Agents. Maggie had only warned them, “Next time I might have to arrest you.” as local youth began harassing known members.

 

Last year, Maggie had walked up to Supergirl at the monument to the fallen, and she turned, her blue eyes locking into Maggie’s.

 

“What I hate, about those with privilege, is they forget about those lost in the rubble.”

 

And then she left, flying slowly to make sure no one would be hurt by the sonic booms from her superspeed.

 

So now, she looked into the alleyway. Supergirl was stamping into the ground causing little shockwaves to spread out. It felt like an earthquake, but if it was Maggie would have run under her heavy wooden table. Instead, she stood against the window and watched. Maggie watched as the foundation crumbled, the building collapsed and screams cried out into the middle of the silent night.

 

"Help us!" They begged.

 

She watched Supergirl take out her phone, and call someone. She watched Supergirl look around, at each building making sure they weren’t damaged by the “earthquake”. She then flew off into the sky, leaving those who hated her to their fate. The worst part was Maggie knew that group had sent the members that killed her sunny neighbor.

 

“Little Sunny Rich,” she used to call Kara.

 

She didn’t know if she wanted to help for once.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit, I haven't watched season 4 yet so anything about the Agents of Liberty is just modeled after hate groups in real life. Also, I can't get a good read on Maggie, so sorry if she's too OOC. But, anyway thank you for reading!


	9. Myriad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's super short because it's just a transition from grey-Kara to evil Kara.  
> A scene got cut that was basically our Rao fanatic putting red-K in the parking lot. I'd imagine Kara and Psi were there for a longish time.

“Kiera!” Cat roared, slamming a tightly wrapped newspaper onto the balcony railing.

 

CatCo had long ago moved to digital media, but there were still a few paper prints just for CatCo cafes. Personally, there was something far more satisfying about slamming down a rolled up newspaper than slamming down a tablet.

 

Supergirl raised an eyebrow but said nothing as she unraveled the paper. It took her an eternity to read the five-word headline. 

 

“I’m not sure I follow, Miss Grant,” Supergirl answered the silent question in Cat’s eyes.

 

“Kiera, did you do this?” Cat snapped, pointing to the headline.

 

“Humanist Headquarters Collapses in Earthquake!” It declared.

 

“Miss Grant,” Supergirl smiled. “It says an earthquake did that. An unfortunate act of God.”

 

“Kiera, I know you had a hand in this. I know this became personal, but you need…”

 

Cat almost ripped Kara’s head off when the blonde alien dared to interrupt.

 

“I need to what, be the bigger alien?” Kara spat.

 

“No. And if you dare to interrupt me again Kara I will personally throw you off this balcony.” Cat snapped. “You need to be tactful in taking them down Kara! For now they are unfortunate victims, but when they become martyrs for their cause they will never die.”

 

“So then what should I do about them?” 

 

Of course, Cat knew Kara’s pain, in her younger years she would have killed for any way to bring down her opponents. Especially those who made it their life’s mission to keep the 99% oppressed. However, she learned a thing or two, and Kara was very lucky.

 

People loved her more than Mon-El. The moment she said her piece there were mass organized riots at all known Agents of Liberty gathering places. At Kara’s funeral they formed a human wall to keep the Agents from attending, and for the past few weeks, it had been the public suppressing any Agent activity. 

 

Alien studies were booming, Jeremiah Danvers was in a queue to give CatCo an interview about alien culture and where to study it.

 

“Let them do all the work for you.” Cat shrugged, scooping out two glasses of candies. “Remember what happened when they killed Kara Richter? The common people did your work for you. Let them play themselves, because if you attack they have a legitimate reason to exist.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Supergirl was in the middle of a mission, a metahuman named Psi was causing havoc among the banking district of National City. The NCPD had already sent out the extent of their DMA teams, so they called on the DEO as backup.

 

Mon-El was no use, but for once not because of his incompetence. He was dealing with another metahuman named Livewire.

 

Psi sent out her psychic shockwave, and everyone around dropped to the floor in mortal terror. Alex, and another unnamed DEO agent, were both outfitted with telepathic inhibitors. She really should learn names better.

 

Supergirl stood there in the middle of the empty parking lot, unaffected. 

 

Before Psi could speak, probably to ask the Girl of Steel how she could stay standing, Supergirl zoomed by. In a flash the rogue metahuman was locked up an in a DEO capture van, ready for the agents to drive. Alex turned to her partner and signaled.

 

They rushed forward, quickly assuming driving position while Alex readied her rifle. She was going to provide fire support just in case anything managed to slip past Supergirl. All she needed to do was wait for Supergirl to give them the okay to drive.

 

Alex inched forward, surely by now Supergirl would have been done scanning? The protocol only dictated five miles, and Supergirl made no move to alert them to danger.

 

“Supergirl?”

 

It wasn’t Supergirl looking at them.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

After a long day at work, Maggie didn’t expect a dead person pressed against Kara’s door. 

 

_ ‘Well, were else would Kara be?’  _ Her brain helpfully thought.  _ ‘I mean, it’s her apartment.’ _

 

‘But, she’s dead?’

 

_ ‘She doesn’t look dead.’ _

 

“Little Rich?” Maggie dropped her bags, it was vegan ice cream but that could wait.

 

All she got was heavy wheezing, and Kara had never had breathing problems before. Her entire being was trembling, reminding Maggie of the very first puppy she saved from a drainage pipe. Quickly Maggie went to work, and placed her hands on Kara's shoulders. 

 

“Kara, it’s going to be alright. Okay? We will get through this together.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Supergirl disappeared on a Sunday. She was last seen in a mission against a metahuman, something went wrong and a parking lot structure went down on the alien and some unidentified government agents.

 

Cat, of course, had a hunch something else was amiss. However, in the best interests of Supergirl, she ran with the story.

 

“Supergirl Hurt Disarming Metahuman!”

 

It was on such short notice that Cat didn’t have time to come up with a better headline. She managed to slip in a “personal” statement from Supergirl. When it was all said and done, Cat flipped through the pages exhausted. It was disgusting, but the best she could do given the timing and better than most other newspaper’s best.

 

It was also the only logical explanation as to why Supergirl was not around. People had come to expect her, and Cat wondered how long it would take until people realized Supergirl was gone for good.

 

Or at least until she snapped out of whatever phase she had gotten herself into.

 

See, as Supergirl disappeared Myriad appeared. There was no such thing as a coincidence, there were only actions and results. Supergirl disappeared so that Myriad could appear.

 

“Cat.” It was hard to hear her name leave the imposter’s lips. 

 

Somehow every part of Kara managed to say it differently. Supergirl said it with such confidence that it felt like they were close friends no matter what Cat said otherwise. Kara always said it softly, with great care as if saying those words were difficult to spit out. And the imposter always said it with amusement, as if she were a mouse to be toyed with.

 

“Kiera.”

 


	10. It all crashes together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd imagine Alex is better trained than this, but she looks so easily flustered. Also, Lucy is Director Lane and the Army base in the desert is a DEO base instead.

What happened, as far as the DEO was concerned, was Kara had a panic attack and needed to take the rest of the week off. Under no circumstances was anyone except for Director Henshaw allowed to call her back into work.

 

That meant Alex had a week to figure out what happened to Supergirl.

 

At the same time, of course, Myriad decides to show up. The DEO and Mon-El had fought aliens and metahumans alike long before Kara showed up, and they could continue to do so without her. However, few other metahumans or aliens had ever had the destructive power that Myriad had.

 

She shot fire from her eyes, froze things with her breath, and decimated blocks with a punch. She was a goddess, her fury was known, and Mon-El was a punching bag. 

 

Mon-El had done the smart thing and lured her out to the middle of nowhere, last time Alex checked the news they were in the middle of the Arizona desert. He was near the desert base, under Director Lane, so hopefully, they could help.

 

Alex had spent the first day scouring through records, trying to find a home address or something to follow. All her tax forms from CatCo had a different home address, and the most current one didn’t exist since Kara was dead.

 

At the break of dawn, she made her way toward the address. It made her nervous, there was a lot of metahuman activity in the area. It was an extremely poor area too, one of those areas Eliza always warned her about when she first moved to National City. Lillian Luthor had called the areas unsightly and launched a campaign against the slum areas trying to out buy the local businesses to increase the local land value.

 

For better or worse her death ended the practice, leaving some areas even poorer than before. The irony.

 

The front of the building looked barely legal, as Alex made her way through the complex she counted the bullet holes. Kara’s apartment was in the middle of a hallway when Alex stopped to check the number a light popped.

 

“Son of a bitch!” Someone snapped as Alex whipped out her gun. “I only have vegan ice cream!”

 

_ ‘Oh shit.’ _ Alex thought.  _ ‘Pretty lady.’ _

 

“I’m sorry!” Alex yelled, her gun still up.

 

The woman looked at her, giving her a pointed glare, and it took Alex a ridiculously long time to realize her gun was still up.

 

Once it was put away the woman stood still in the middle of the hallway, and Alex gave her an awkward apology before looking back at the number plate. The woman was still there, watching her. Alex tried not to look at her, focusing on her mission, but she was watching Alex’s every move. 

 

“Can I help you?” Alex huffed, looking up at the woman.

 

“Yeah, what are you doing here?”

 

“I’m looking for my friend.” 

 

The woman arched an eyebrow and Alex cringed inside. She was a Federally trained agent, battled against aliens from distant galaxies, and even stared down the Vice President. What the frick frack was this?

 

_ ‘Pull yourself together Agent Danvers.’ _ She thought.

 

“Right, well whoever your looking for isn’t there.”

 

Alex ignored that. The number was right, but there was no way of checking if Kara was inside with the woman out in the hallway watching her like a hawk. Kara was supposed to have a DEO issued cell phone on her at all times, but Alex found in Kara’s locker.

 

The only way to check was to knock. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It was surprisingly easy to gain access to the government when there was a rogue alien/goddess rampaging about. Even though she was a Luthor they handed her a Non-Disclosure Form and a key. Card more like, but it allowed her complete access to the DEO.

 

Kara had mentioned the agency in passing, mostly to rant about how useless it was, as they worked on installing solar panels in L-Corp. Lena managed the rest, figuring that the most likely cover they were using was through the FBI. 

 

Of course there were a few frowns, but most of those were directed towards Myriad. So far Myriad had escaped all forms of identification, the only reason they knew she was female was because of her long hair. Extremely sexist and backward if you asked Lena, but nevertheless Myriad responded to the female pronouns Mon-El addressed her with.

 

Though she could have gone by he….

 

Either way the DEO was wasting its energy trying to identify the woman. Jax-Ur, another Kryptonian Kara had also mentioned in passing, couldn’t identify her. Mon-El couldn’t get close enough. Yes it would have been nice to know what they were working against, but they didn’t have the luxury.

 

At the very least the DEO had activated its Arizona branch, the robot Alien-killer, Red Tornado, had been activated and launched. General Sam Lane, and his daughter Director Lane, were both very confident that their robot would stop Myriad.

 

They upgraded the AI system so the billion dollar glorified drone wouldn’t run head first into a mountainside.

 

Winn, her DEO IT compatriot, had started choking on his soft drink when Director Lane informed Director Henshaw about the upgrade. Lena swore she saw Hank crack a small smile, while General Lane bristled like a tea kettle.

 

“Last time Supergirl managed to get it to smash into a mountain.” Winn spat out in between fits of laughter. “Oh man you should have seen it!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jor-El rolled his eyes. It looked like the only way to get a job done was to do it yourself.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cat was currently about to have an aneurysm just to spite Kiera. Yes, Kiera because Kiera did not deserve to be called Kara. Kiera was currently head deep into a “I hate the entire world” phase and it wasn’t flattering. If she could Cat would have smacked the common sense back into the girl, but she couldn’t and all she could do was inform the incompetent fools Kiera worked with nowadays.

 

She called her driver and made her way down the stairs.

 

At the very least she knew what Kiera was planning, sort of. Her original plan seemed to be to destroy the earth to create a replica of her home planet. But, somewhere mixed into that, was a desire to be worshiped, and perhaps some unresolved rage at humanity.

 

She had told Cat she was headed to Arizona, to destroy those who dare test her, and she was off not letting Cat get a word in. It was for the best, she used Kiera’s first few months as a test anyway.

 

Now all she had to do was find the damn DEO. How hard could that be?

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The woman was currently standing at the door next to Kara’s silently judging her as Alex prepared herself to knock.

 

“Stop judging me.” She accidentally blurted out loud.

 

The woman laughed.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It took six minutes of fighting, epic flame filled fighting the Transformers franchise would drool over, for everyone watching to realize the Red Tornado had no chance. The pinnacle of human killing technology had absolutely no chance against Myriad.

 

When she grew tired of the game, she tore the robot in half and threw the head at Mon-El.

 

“That’s how you take off a head!” She roared.

 

Lena and Winn went to work.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It turned out Kara had another best friend in her life. Alex felt kind of cheated on to be honest. Why no mention?

 

The same thing seemed to be crossing Maggie’s mind, minus the heartache. 

 

They reached an understanding after Alex explained things to Maggie. Kara moved in five years ago, as a non-English speaking alien. Something about the sunny woman managed to get to Maggie and she helped Kara get on her feet, teaching her basic English and getting Kara her first job.

 

Then a few days ago the dead Kara had appeared at her apartment, then disappeared again in an obvious state of panic.

 

“You seem very calm,” Alex said over a cup of Maggie’s hot chocolate.

 

“I already knew about that.”

 

Alex blinked. “What?”

 

“I’m a detective, Agent Danvers, I detect.”

 

“How did…”

 

“You dropped your badge when you aimed at me.”


	11. Lane Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this entire chapter is in the pov of Jor-El.

The crash damaged all the pods far more than Jor-El calculated. They were within acceptable ranges for their thick shelled escape pods, but Kara’s thinner navigational pod must have been heavily damaged.

 

It was also probably why she was dead.

 

Well, assumed dead. Jor-El, Astra, and Non had decided due to the recent passing of Zor-El, they wouldn’t tell Alura of their conclusion. It was well known that Kal-El managed to survive the flight to Earth, since his pod sent them back precise measurements of not only his location but also of the world around him.

 

However, no matter how hard he tried he could never reach Kara’s pod. Exhausting every mode of communication, Jor-El decided to review the construction reports of Kara’s pod. There he found that Kara’s pod was made a few millimeters thinner than it should have.

 

It took the council little time to strip the spaceship builders of their Master status. Appropriate punishments were given, all shipbuilders were reduced to apprenticeships and forced to do community service.

 

Alura had come to him afterward, asking about the chances of Kara’s survival.

 

“Most definite.” He said, the guilt of possibly lying to a grieving wife. "We designed the pods to withstand a large margin of error and still be functional."

 

Which was true, but he wasn't so sure in Kara's case. All scenarios he programmed gave Kara something near a 47% chance of surviving. Zor-El, before he passed into the light of Rao, had estimated the limit of the Kryptonian physiology. He did so to make sure both of their children survived the impact, trusting Jor-El with his daughter's very life. 

 

Now Zor-El was gone, and he may have sent Kara to her death. The guilt ate at his soul, and he worked hard at his new mission. To atone to his dead brother Jor-El made sure Alura was allowed passage on his mission, using his power as Head of the House of El to demand her support. She picked her substitution for the council and then they set off to find Kara and Kal.

 

The Earth itself reminded Jor-El of his dear brother's favorite legend, a story passed down through the ages of when Krypton was still young and Rao was a powerful yellow sun. Life crawled all over Earth like it once did on Krypton, in fact underfoot there was a massive layer of unbroken plant life covering the dirt below. Non was on the edge, his eyes alight with his new found laser vision. Alura looked around, her eyes heavy and sad. 

 

It had taken a lot for her to send her daughter out into space, her only daughter of her dead beloved husband.

 

Only Astra looked at him, her pointed stare reminding him of his countless sins. 

* * *

 

It took Jor-El a few tries to connect to the Internet. He already knew about the human’s primitive technology thanks to the signals picked up by Kal-El’s pod, but he didn’t realize that humans were extremely practical. If there were no humans around there was no internet connection. On Krypton the entire world was covered in their form of “internet” connection, even in the far outreaches of the planet there was still a way to connect. 

 

It was Non who suggested moving closer to the cities, thinking since there were more humans there the signal should be stronger. The travel there was simple with an ample amount of food and water stocked in the pods. One water flask was damaged in the crash, which caused a lot of food to become unusable, but since they came in two pods the other pod provided much of their food.

 

Non, as Astra’s lieutenant, elected to carry the supplies while Jor-El carried his instrument. It was a flattened disk painted red, a tribute to Rao. Jor-El personally created the device, able to interface with any electronic device as long as it broadcasted a signal. 

 

It took them five earth hours to find a signal, from there Jor-El set to work. He updated the language devices to include the accent and specific words of the region and then began scanning for Kara or Kal on the internet.

 

“Here, these will let us speak the native language without having to learn it.” He said, passing out little silver earpieces. 

 

They were old pieces of technology made a few thousand years ago when Krypton commercialized space exploration. Before then the space explorers they sent out were very educated, versed in many local dialects of the area and social norms. Which was perhaps the reason for a few space wars.

 

“Where is Kara?” Alura asked. “Have you contacted her?”

 

“Not yet.” Jor-El shook his head, avoiding the death glare from Astra. “But I have sent messages, she must be busy.”

 

* * *

By chance Jor-El walked into the car. To be fair, there was no reason for any human to be out and about, an alien was destroying their city so Jor-El thought they would have all evacuated. He cursed, nothing good could come out of this. A blonde woman, the owner of said device, walked out and looked at him. 

  
  


She was slightly shorter than him, and in the later stages of her human life, but the way she looked at him left Jor-El shaking at his core.

 

“Goodness.” He muttered in Kryptonian. He was Jor-El, she was a human, and yet it felt like their roles were reversed. 

 

“Are you from Krypton?” She asked him in accented Kryptonian. 

 

Jor-El frowned, there was no way she would know the name of his home planet or his language unless...

 

“Do you know Kara Zor-El?” He asked.

 

* * *

 

He brought Cat to their base, Non almost had a heart attack. Non’s nerves had been shot the entire trip, if it weren’t for Astra he would have most likely blown a fuse and went on a rampage. To be fair, Jor-El understood. They were strangers on a strange planet teeming with life, on Krypton every instance of life was controlled.

 

They knew the number of Kryptonians, the number of the flies, even a rough idea of the number of bacteria. 

 

“Why would you bring a human here?” He yelled in Kryptonian. “Have you gone insane?”

 

“Because I know about Kara.” Cat answered back in English, rolling her eyes. “And yelling does nothing.”

 

Alura sat up and walked towards the human. “You know about Kara? How is she?”

 

“Kara is currently trying to destroy the entire world.” Cat said.

 

* * *

 

Jor-El kept his mouth shut as Cat explained everything that had been going on. Alura was horrified, Astra and Non kept exchanging glances. They were the ones who had trained Kara personally, as the best of the military guild they made sure Kara’s military education was thorough.

 

Which meant they would be the only ones able to subdue Myriad. If they wanted too.

 

* * *

 

Alura kept Cat busy, they swapped stories of Kara, Kara Richter as she was known on Earth. Non stood guard, angrily watching the two as Jor-El and Astra talked.

 

‘Myriad is working as designed.’ Jor-El wrote.

 

As far as Alura knew, her daughter was sent to Earth to gather information about the human species. Therefore Jor-El thought it would be wise to communicate through his hologram screen. 

 

‘No it is not! There is something wrong with Kara!’ Astra scribbled, frowning at the scientist.

 

‘Wrong? It is programmed to create a clean slate to terraform.’

 

Astra rolled her eyes and Jor-El had the faint feeling if it wasn’t for Alura she would have smacked him by now.

 

‘Yes, but through the machine and NOT by itself!’

 

He would admit that it was something he was worried about. Myriad was programmed to accomplish five stages, and then a sixth separate stage with Kal-El. Right now it sounded like it was stuck in a corrupted version of the fourth stage.

 

‘When we find Myriad I will correct the programming.’ He conceded, wiping the discussion logs from his device.

 

Not that Non, Astra, or Alura would be able to recover them. They were brilliant in their fields, just like all Kryptonians, but technology was not in their field. No, he was more afraid of the daughter of Zor-El, created with all of the knowledge of Krypton in half her brain and its wisdom in the other.


	12. Sick Leave and Such

Eliza forced herself to move, but the bindings held firm and she couldn’t move her arms. Jeremiah lay on the ground where he fell, his back spasmed before he could land a blow on Myriad and the intruder did nothing to bind him. They weren’t the ones she was after.

 

Myriad’s face shield was up, the black mask with glowing red eyes looked quite plain for a supervillain. From what Eliza had seen on the news, it was more utilitarian than showy, Myriad was able to fire lasers from her eyes. Having two slits to do so was probably useful.

 

She had no cape, and had a plain circle on the upper portion of her chest near her shoulder. If Eliza survived she would let Alex know, the DEO had been wanting for news about the newest super villain.

 

Clark stood in the middle of the room, staring down the intruder. Eliza had yelled at him, telling him to go hide, but he stood defiant. A true hero.

 

“You are going to release my mom!” He yelled. “And leave!”

 

Myriad simply cocked her head.

 

She blasted him with her heat vision, but Clark had been working on his powers after Kara showed him the ropes and met her blasts with his own. Eliza could feel the heat even five feet away, and she wished she could cover her face. It felt like a sauna set to high, the hot air was burning her nose and lips.

 

Eliza wasn’t sure who stopped first, but she watched as Myriad grabbed Clark.

 

“No!” She yelled as Myriad blasted off.

 

~

 

Alex was first to the scene, untying her mom quickly. Maggie helped her dad to a chair, and she quickly took note of the entire scene. Besides the broken window, there was nothing wrong with the house. Even the chair Eliza was tied to was in near perfect condition, and there was no bruising on Eliza’s wrists or ankles.

 

Myriad was careful about the entire operation. 

 

“She took Clark!” Eliza yelled, snapping Alex back to reality. “You need to save him now!”

Clark?

 

~

Lena was completely surprised, well not at all really but she pretended to be, when the DEO came knocking. She had run ins with the government before, more so when Lex and Lillian were alive. While Lex was CEO of LuthorCorp, he developed anti-alien technology that could have advanced the world into the next age. Of Warfare.

 

She took all of his findings and used it to propel health information technology, creating advances and jobs in the process. That kept the DEO away, since they couldn’t make a cause out of helping other people.

 

However with Myriad blasting around Lena found the hospitals she founded were overfilled and the charities she supports were stretched thin. She threw more money at those causes and reopened Lex’s blueprints.

 

“Agent Danvers of the DEO.” Agent Danvers, supposedly, said.

 

“Hello Agent Danvers.” Lena nodded. “What do I owe the pleasure.”

 

“We need your help.” The agent sighed, sagging under the weight of her stress. Lena understood that, living on with the weight of her family’s sins was enough to break Lena at times.

 

“With?”

 

“Myriad.”

 

~

 

Maggie demanded to come with Alex to the DEO, and Alex caved a little too quickly for her liking. The detective, however, was to wait in the car while Alex went up to talk to Lena Luthor. The Luthor family was well renowned for being a clan of brilliant geniuses, and for having a crazy gene.

 

Lex Luthor had made it his life’s mission to rid the world of alien “invaders” as he liked to call them. Lillian Luthor had supported her son’s ambition, while managing LuthorCorp. Lillian had created many breakthrough pharmaceuticals, lifesaving drugs that made humanity better at a steep cost. 

 

She had been facing price setting lawsuits when she died, Lena had lowered the cost of all her Mother’s drugs and even sent free dosages to users. And Alex had the sneaking suspicion that Kara had been “seeing” Lena. 

 

Convincing Lena took little effort, the raven-haired woman quickly offered her help. It truly was a shame, Alex thought as she sped back to the DEO headquarters, that Lena had the name Luthor. But, perhaps it was for the best since otherwise, she wouldn’t be in such a position to help.

 

~

 

The DEO proved to be a lot cooler than Lena thought it would be. Considering it was part of the government Lena had expected drab coloring and hideously outdated technology. Everyone wore black, which wasn’t a bad look, and human technology was from this era. The alien technology was out of this world, Lex stood little chance against the things the DEO gleaned from their extraterrestrial friends. 

 

Of course, though, the DEO didn’t know how to put some of it to use, which was why they brought Lena in.

 

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you asked.

 

Meeting Jax-Ur was a surprise since Lena thought Kara was the only Kryptonian on Earth. Her surprise quickly faded when she realized she hadn’t seen the blonde haired woman in a long time.

 

She sent Kara a text, asking where she had been these past few days.  It wasn’t like Kara to disappear without a trace.

 

**Kara [11:32 am] :** Been feeling out of it. I’m stuck at home on sick leave.

 

Lena frowned, that was a first. She had never known Kara to get sick in general, but she guessed it could happen. 

 

**Lena [11:33 am] :** Stop being sick! :) L-Corp is boring without you. Come back Kara.

 

~

For the first time in her life Cat was pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong. She knew Jor-El had a hand in it, but Myriad stopped her rampage and disappeared overnight, leaving many to wonder where she had gone. 

 

Myriad still left a massive scar in National City, demolishing nearly half of the industrial zone and leaving a submarine on the docks. The Navy was pissed that one of their expensive toys was beached by a “metahuman”, but otherwise, everyone was left unharmed. Even Mon-El, though his ego took a hit. 

 

Really the worst part Myriad’s rampage was the desert base no one legally knew about, and a part of Washington DC. 

 

It had taken Cat five days to find the DEO, using half of her government contacts in National City. By then Myriad had disappeared, to the relief of Jor-El. She was well aware that Jor-El and Astra knew more than they let on, disappearing into the bathroom to “talk” had been an obvious red flag.

 

Kara had returned, unsurprisingly, and Eve had sent her a frantic phone call that Supergirl was in her office.

 

“Kiera.” She said, storming into CatCo. “Did you finally decide to take my advice?”

 

“Yes, Cat.”

 

“Well good, now explain yourself. Beating up your partner in crime is generally frowned upon and destroying a large part of the city you are protecting is considered a jerk move Kiera, as you millenials put it.”

 

“I will, but in person.”

 

Cat blinked. “My office, tonight.”

  
  


~

 

Working with Jax-Ur and Winn was really fun, though not as fun as working with Kara. Lena learned a few new Kryptonian curse words from Jax that she wanted to try on Kara when she felt better. Winn shared in her nerdy nature, and they both gushed on as Jax vividly described the technology he had seen.

 

Myriad had gone missing, but it didn’t stop Alex from commissioning L-Corp to make anti-alien weapons. In fact, Alex had fired Winn and Jax-Ur from the DEO and asked Lena to hire them, which she did.

 

“You need to keep Jax’s patents under L-Corp,” Alex said, in what felt like the shadiest deal of Lena’s life. “General Lane wants to take his designs and make them into military weapons.”

 

Lena understood that, and she was overwhelmed by the trust Alex gave her even though they barely knew each other.

 

So it lead to Kryptonian guns. Jax hadn’t been on Krypton for a long time, but he remembered enough to give rough blueprints.

 

“When our species was younger we were space travelers,” Jax said, creating the blueprint for the firing mechanism. “We were conquerors, killers. But then reform swept through Krypton, our ancestors grew tired of killing people and instead used our formidable name to become space diplomats.”

 

He was almost done with the design, Lena looked over his shoulder and noticed he was missing the firing pin. 

 

‘Daxamite whore!’ He yelled, throwing his pencil in frustration. ‘I can’t remember the damn pin!’

 

Lena said nothing as she drew the design Kara taught her. A few weeks ago Kara walked into their shared workspace with the strangest looking gun Lena had ever seen. Now she realized it was a DEO issue gun, used against aliens.

 

Kara had taken the entire thing apart and shown Lena every single piece.

 

“This is the firing pin.” Kara had said, lifting up a thin spear shaped piece. “Even though Krypton and Earth are light years apart we both use the same firing pin. Used. Krypton moved to plasma and laser guns in the last era.”

 

For some reason that stuck in Lena’s brain, and she roughly sketched out the pin Kara held up from memory.

 

“Ah yes!” Jax nodded. “Perfect, now let’s synthesize Kryptonite.”

 

~

 

Cat poured herself a glass of water and a glass of candy. Supergirl already had her glasses set in front of her. 

 

“So, would you like to explain what happened?” Cat snapped. 

 

Supergirl swirled her glasses around. “I can’t. I’m not exactly sure what happened.”

 

Cat wasn’t expecting that answer. She was speechless, something she hated personally. Supergirl seemed to have a knack for it, however. 

 

“The past week felt like a blur. I can’t remember specific details, but I do have a vague idea of what happened.”

 

“How?” Cat put her glass down.

 

“Remember that story of when you drove home in your sleep?” Supergirl said, looking up at Cat. “Like, you drove home so many times it was muscle memory?”

 

The implications of that meant Supergirl was basically programmed to destroy the world. If Supergirl couldn’t control herself, then how in the world did humanity expect to control Supergirl?

 

“Why did you stop?” Cat asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

 

“Because someone asked me to come back.”

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm compiling a list of scenes to write up in Kara's point of view from this story. If anyone has a request I'll be happy to add them in!


	13. Visitors

****

“Kara.” Lena said hugging the blonde. “Please, come clean and tell us everything.”

 

Somehow Cat Grant had made her way into the top floor of the DEO, and refused to leave until she was granted an interview with Supergirl. Kara had agreed and all but forced Alex’s hand, demanding that Alex give Cat the Non-disclosure agreement otherwise she would leave with Cat without one.

 

Alex let it happen, there was a rising wave of anti-Supergirl sentiment since she had gone missing the past few days and this small headache now would save her a larger one later. 

 

Kara came back right afterward, and for the past few hours, Alex and Maggie had been trying to extract information from Kara. Surprisingly enough Kara had been evasive, either deciding not to answer or genuinely not understanding the questions.

 

Lena had arrived nearly an hour ago, giving Alex an unofficial update about their unofficial arrangement. When Maggie caught wind of it, she gave Alex a sly smile but said nothing.

 

When the CEO grew tired of their failed attempts she simply walked in the room and hugged Kara.

 

Alex was about to roll her eyes, but the sudden shift in Kara’s entire demeanor made her think otherwise. Kara was whipped.

 

“Okay, alright.” Kara sighed. “So when I battled Psi I came into contact with red kryptonite, so I went to my Arctic base and synthesized a cure for myself. It took a while for it to work, I didn’t actually file sick leave. I didn’t really know I was supposed to.”

 

“Wait, you have an Arctic base?” Alex frowned.

 

“Yeah, there’s no signal up there.” Kara shrugged. “And Psi broke my phone so I had no way to contact you. I’m sorry Alex, for not telling you.”

 

At least this time this look genuine and Maggie was nodding along.

 

“So, Little Sunny Rich, when were you going to officially tell me you were Supergirl?”

 

Kara’s eyes went wide, and she did her very best to look like a goldfish. 

 

“Uh, I, uh.”

 

Maggie laughed. “I’ll take that as now.”

 

~

Lena was mildly surprised that Kara was able to get away with lying about her name. Sure, she only pretended to be Kara Dru-Zod because she was scared of the DEO, but still.

 

“So, Kal-El is my baby cousin.” Kara Zor-El said to Alex Danvers of the DEO. “And we were sent to Earth to learn about its culture and biology. However, on our way here, our pods crash landed miles apart and my pod was completely trashed on arrival. So I didn’t know where he was until last year when I went to Midvale with you.”

 

Alex stiffened.

 

“Kara, there’s something you should know. Myriad kidnapped Clark.”

 

~

 

Maggie would never let Alex know, but the DEO had some really fun weapons that she wished the NCPD had. Of course, much of it was based on alien technology, so they would never in a million years be able to have these, but still. It wasn’t fair.

 

The moment Kara knew her eyes hardened, and it reminded Maggie of the lost alien who beat up a guy trying to steal from a little kid. Myriad wouldn’t know what hit her.

 

This was an unofficial mission, meaning it wasn’t Supergirl and Agent Danvers going out to rescue Clark Danvers. It was Maggie Sawyer, Alex Danvers, and Kara Danvers her long lost adopted blonde sister, going to rescue Clark Danvers.

 

That was another really cool perk of being in the DEO, Alex had Kara’s new civilian identity ready in a flash, with a matching Social Security number, a passport, State ID, and even glasses.

 

“Here,” Alex said, handing Kara a basic pair of brown glasses. “These are made with face distorting technology. It masks your real features so no one will ever know Kara Danvers is actually Supergirl.”

 

Kara looked amused by the glasses, Alex assured her the lenses didn’t actually work. But she put them on, and Maggie realized what Alex meant. You could tell it was still Kara, but it took a lot of focus and at a glance, you couldn’t even tell. It was like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, and when you looked realizing it wasn’t actually there.

 

~

Alex drove them back to Midvale, it was one of those small enough towns that no one wanted to build an airport for. The only way in and out, using modern technology, was through the two-lane state highway. 

 

Maggie, who had never left the city, looked around in wonder at the road. There was nothing for miles, except for some small farms and maybe an electricity line here or there. Kara kept asking questions.

 

Not that she didn’t know, but it didn’t hit her until now that Kara really was an alien from another planet. It felt like something as common as the grooves on the road to alert drivers was something everyone knew, but how would you know about those things if you never drove cars? 

 

Even Maggie had questions.

 

“Danvers,” She said, pointing out the window. “What are those?”

 

She pointed to the snow fences, and Kara perked up like a puppy. 

 

“Where?” Kara asked, straining to see. 

 

“Those are snow fences,” Alex said as they sped by one. “It helps slow down wind and snow, so the highway stays clear during winter.”

 

“Oh.” They both said, wonder on their faces.

 

~

 

Midvale didn’t hold anything useful, Maggie noted. While Alex was part of the DEO, Maggie was a detective and there was nothing there that would help them find Myriad. Eliza’s description of what could have been a shield was slightly helpful, but since they didn’t really know what they were up against it wasn’t much.

 

However they let Eliza give them food, and Kara avoided any conversation about where she had been for the past week or so.

 

She had been extremely worried, personally. When she thought Kara had died the first time, she had taken the day off to mourn the loss. Kara had, of course, come back to explain everything the day afterward.

 

So when Kara disappeared again and didn’t come back immediately, she had feared the worst. There were a thousand different examples in the back of her head of aliens faking their own deaths just to escape human persecution. But, when they were killed nobody would know. No one reported alien deaths. They just suddenly disappeared, without returning, leaving behind families and friends who would always wonder where they went. 

 

~

Cat Grant breaking into the DEO twice somehow made it to number two on Alex’s list of concerns. Her first, embarrassingly enough, was the fact Maggie was probably flirting with her. 

 

“Cat Grant.” Alex sighed. “Why are you here?”

 

Hank was once again in DC, fighting against General Lane, so Alex was interim director. Cat Grant seemed completely at home inside of the underground government agency, simply looking around before looking at Alex.

 

“I have visitors of the alien kind. I thought you dealt with them here.” She said.

 

Alex suddenly noticed the four people behind Cat, and she felt her blood pressure rise. First she had to deal with all of Kara’s truths, second Cat Freaking Grant broke into the damn DEO, and now she was going to have to get blood thinners.

 

How did Hank do it?

 

If that wasn’t enough Kara was out on a mission with Mon-El. It wasn’t really a mission, more like the two lent their strength to the rebuilding efforts. Supergirl had been a little dimmer than normal, which broke Alex’s heart.

 

It wasn’t quite her fault that coincidences happened.

 

They had their introductions, though Alex quickly forgot the names of the two men. It wasn’t her fault, she was a bit preoccupied. 

 

She was about to show them towards one of the nicer holding cells when the ceiling caved in and a blur of red and blue came crashing into the expensive marble floor.

 

‘Son of a Rao-Damned Daxamite Whore!’ Kara screamed in Kryptonian as she crashed into the top floor of the DEO building.

 

Alex and Cat didn’t understand the meanings of the words, but they understood the gravity. Alex blushed, it felt like the first time she accidentally caught Eliza saying the f-word. Cat looked amused as if she had been waiting for this moment for the past five years.

 

Their visitors were in varying states of reaction, with the men laughing to their heart's content and Astra biting her wrist to keep herself from smiling. What Alex guessed was a mother, frowned, ready to kill Kara. 

 

Kara groaned, and stood, dusting herself off. Mon-El dropped down, saw their guests, and frowned. He chased after the metahuman while Kara got herself ready again, and Alex almost thought the surprise wouldn’t have to be ruined.

 

What was the point though? Now was a great of a time as any.

 

“Kara Zor-El!” Alura called out, fire burning from her eyes.

 

Kara froze, Alex froze, the entire DEO froze at the sound of a scorned mother scolding her wayward child. It was almost comical, Kara slowly turned around, her entire body tense. Kara knew she could escape the punishment, just like how Alex could easily run away from Eliza. However, they both didn’t dare risk more of their mother’s wrath.

 

Off to the side Astra bit deeper into her wrist, trying to hide her smile. The boys, Non and Jor-El, did no such thing and were laughing to their heart's content, like old drinking buddies. 

 

Kara gave her mother a weak smile, while the older woman walked forward.

 

“I did not raise you to use such vile words young lady!” She snarled in nearly perfect English, perhaps for the sake of Alex and Cat.

 

“I am sorry Mother, my temper got the best of me.” Kara answered, not meeting her eyes.

 

“Oh Alura, it is common for members of the military guild to use such words.” Astra offered up once she got her smile under control. “After all, Du-Zod was famous for his mouth!”

 

“Yes, I know.” Alura sighed, deciding she missed Kara more than she wanted to beat her. “Oh Kara, I have missed you Daughter.”

 


	14. Codex

Even with the collective knowledge of Krypton in his brain, there were ways for Kara’s brain to get infected. Jor-El frowned at his scans, he managed to sneak them in when Kara had them over for dinner. The organic half of her brain was riddled with a synthetic substance he officially had never seen before.

 

Of course he had seen it before, it was the pure form of most drugs on Krypton. In the ages long gone, Krypton used to have a problem with synthetic Kryptonite. ‘Red Courage’, they once called it. It eliminated all traces of fear, and reduced inhibitions leaving a Kryptonian free to chase their innermost desires.

 

They used to give it to the military guild, but it was banned after sweeping reform to turn Krypton into a place of science and reason. 

 

He signalled to Astra, they had told Non enough to assure his silence, and his assistance in keeping Alura occupied. Currently they were guests of Catherine Grant, whom Kara had personally vetted.

 

‘Astra.’ He wrote. ‘She has come into contact with synthetic kryptonite.’

 

Astra’s eyes glowed red, and Jor-El feared for his very life. But, she took control of herself, and the heat building up in her eyes faded away. 

 

‘Can you purge it?’

 

Zor-El had made sure his daughter would be as well prepared as he could make her. However, when it came down to the Myriad project, he refused to remove all of Kara’s brain. That was where they differed, Jor-El had told his brother that he should remove the entire brain, they could easily make a perfect copy of Kara and store it next to the Myriad protocol.

 

Yet, Zor-El had refused. He insisted that they keep the other half of her brain intact, and instead they installed a way to diffuse things into her bloodstream.

 

Now he understood why Zor-El had done it.

 

‘I can. But she will be in great agony.’

 

‘Don’t.’

~

 

Cat’s heart dropped when she saw Myriad standing on her balcony. She almost wanted to say only Supergirl was welcome there, but that would exclude Kara. The black clad warrior was floating, facing the city with her arms crossed.

 

“Myriad.” Cat sighed, slipping behind her desk to mask her fear. “Why are you here brooding like one of those self entitled teenagers?”

 

“I have a message.” Myriad said, turning around in mid-float.

 

~

 

Cat Grant breaking in for the third time was just an insult.

 

Somehow she managed to sneak past all the “specially trained” DEO agents and sit in Alex’s office for a few hours without anyone noticing. How in the fucking world?

 

She was out with Maggie, on totally official business if anyone asks, and almost screamed when she turned around and saw Cat.

 

“Cat Grant!” Her voice didn’t break, and she did not squeal.   
  


The blonde woman only raised an eyebrow before handing her an envelope.

 

“This is from Myriad.” Cat said.

 

~

 

They had gotten the letter a few hours ago, and Alex had been waiting at the point for nearly five hours. Maggie had to finish her shift before she could join her future girlfriend, they made plans for the future once they found Clark. 

 

She had been in and out of the point, a cliff overlooking the sea near Midvale, bringing Alex food and creature comforts. Once Eliza learned of the plan she joined her daughter in her solitary vigil, they sat together on the blanket Maggie got them and watched over the ocean. 

 

Myriad had never specified a time, only promising to arrive once the sunset, and promising to never show up with Clark unless it was only Alex.

 

One of the explicit demands in the letter was, “No DEO agents besides Agent Alex Danvers within a fifty mile radius, otherwise I will not return with Clark Danvers. And Director Henshaw must be at least one hundred miles away from the coordinates provided.”

 

Myriad had her bases covered.

 

Maggie had elected to come along, mostly for Alex and partially because she wasn’t a DEO agent. Either Myriad didn’t care, or didn’t know about the NCPD, but Maggie decided to come.

 

Once the sun started descending they felt the breeze hit their faces. Before them floated Myriad, a bag in hand.

 

Maggie swallowed hard, she knew what that meant. Eliza gasped, and Alex’s hand quickly found hers. Her grip was almost unbearably hard, but Maggie said nothing as Myriad reached into the bag.

 

“Here.” She said. “Have Clark back.”

 

Maggie gagged at the bones.

 

~

 

Lena knew they were moving fast, but she didn’t expect Kara to show up with a child. She thought she would have at least have gotten a dinner and a date before they moved on to more long term things like a child. Or even a dog.

 

“Ah, Kara?” 

 

Kara threw her a goofy grin that sent heat straight to her cheeks, and Lena found herself smiling along.

 

“Hey Lena.” Kara wheezed, dropping the possibly five year old on the ground. “Meet. My cousin, Kal-El.”

 

At that Lena frowned, Kara never looked this tired before. Or even this pale.

 

“Kara, are you okay?”

 

~

 

His scanner screamed to life at the worst time possible.

 

‘Myriad has captured the Codex. The Myriad Protocol has been completed. Evacuation of the Planet is suggested.’

 

~


	15. The Final Battle

The final battle against Myriad happened in the middle of Montana. Supergirl had called out through the comms that she saw her and then vanished. Alex screamed.

 

How dare Myriad think she could take everything away from her. First it was Clark, and now she dare hurt Kara.

 

Astra and Non suited up, thick bulky looking Kryptonian Battlesuits that Jor-El and Jax-Ur quickly put together. Lena even showed up, bringing the guns. All the Kryptonians were quiet as Lena handed them weapons that could easily kill them. 

 

“What’s in the other briefcase?” Alex asked it looked like a suitcase really, there were wheels on the bottom and it looked massive.

 

Lena said nothing, her eyes red and Alex realized she wasn’t the only one missing Kara. Instead, the CEO opened the case, revealing thousands of rounds of kryptonite tipped bullets.

 

~

 

Alura was quiet, mourning her daughter that she could never sent back into Rao’s light. Jor-El mourned as well, they sat together to say a prayer hoping Rao would accept their children even if they could never send them into his light. 

 

‘We pray for you,’ They sang. ‘Who cannot pray for us.’

 

~

 

Because of the mourning period, Alura and Jor-El could not do anything, so only Astra and Non were fighting. Astra carried Alex on her back as they flew to Montana, her grip was so tight on her gun her knuckles turned white. 

 

The final fight and Alex was going to make absolutely sure of this, against Myriad was in the middle of nowhere. It was cold, snow hadn’t come yet but it was on its way. She had taken a thick DEO jacket along because J’onn wouldn’t let her go without it, but the cold did nothing to cool the rage burning in Alex’s soul.

 

The moment she saw the black-clad warrior she took her aim and fired, shooting straight into Myriad’s heart. The bullet deflected, bouncing off into the snow.

 

“This is not your fight human.” Myriad said, her voice completely masked.

 

Myriad blasted forward, crashing into Non and sending him into the next state. “It is with the Kryptonians!”

 

~

 

Astra didn’t recognize Kara anymore.

 

After training her for thirteen years, Astra had Kara’s movement patterns ingrained into her mind like a map of Krypton. She knew what Kara would do long before Kara was sure herself, so when Kara managed to land a blow on Non, Astra knew. This wasn’t the Kara she trained anymore.

 

This was Kara, a fully realized adult.

 

Astra launched forward, hoping that Alex would think of another plan. If they were going to fight Kara, they would need those bullets.

 

Blow after blow Kara met her, Non flew back and broke the stalemate by crashing into Kara. Non had her in a headlock, crushing something around her throat, but Kara managed to lean forward, causing Astra’s fist to collide with Non’s cheek.

 

‘Bastard!’ Non snarled, punching down Kara’s side. ‘Control yourself! Have you no shame?’

 

Kara snarled, her skin glowing golden as she threw Non into Astra. The last thing she saw as the world slowly turned black was Kara’s golden eyes. 

  
  



	16. At Last

Out of the millions of things that would kill Humanity, Lena didn’t expect it to be increased gravity. It was brilliant actually, humans had evolved under specific and stable gravity, changing it would harm them, even killing them.

 

 

She watched as the giant circular device loomed over the Arctic and blasted a golden beam of light into the world. Somehow she could see skyscrapers crumble, and vaguely she could see things frantically scramble about the face of the world, trying not to get crushed.  

 

She turned around and faced Myriad, for some reason out of all the humans kept in the ship she was the only one allowed to roam around free. Waking up had been disorientating. She walked outside just to get some food for Kal-El and then the entire world turned dark.

 

She found herself on a soft bed, surrounded by pillows and blankets she knew she didn’t buy. Myriad had been waiting in the corner of the room, glowing golden underneath her black suit.

 

“What am I doing here?” Lena asked.

 

Personally, Lena always thought asking that question was completely pointless. Captors seemed to enjoy saying as little as possible, just to make people confused. But, it couldn’t hurt to ask, at the very least Myriad would just ignore her.

 

Myriad shook her head but pointed to what Lena assumed would be a door.

 

“Do you want me to follow you?” Lena asked, slowly sliding out of the bed.

 

A small nod was her only confirmation as Myriad quickly left the room.

 

~

 

Lena could not believe her eyes. Lex’s nightmares had come to fruition, the helplessness at watching as alien gods destroyed everything she had ever know made her feel slightly resentful. How could she let this happen?

 

Where was Kara?

 

She turned to Myriad, who simply stood and watched her quietly.

 

“What are you doing?” She gasped, her mind racing with thoughts of Eve and Jess.

 

Myriad didn’t answer, instead leading her away from the massive glass panel. They were in a spaceship, considering you couldn’t see the entirety of Earth standing on it. By Lena’s estimates, they were halfway between the Earth and the Moon.

 

Another door opened, leading into a hallway full of cylindrical pods. Each pod had a curved panel of glass, showing everything inside.

 

_ Cat Grant, Alex Danvers… _

 

Eve was in a pod, off in the corner. Everyone Kara and Lena knew was on the ship, even Kal had his own pod.

 

The Kryptonians looked like they were flash frozen in their pods, the humans were all in a sleeping position, lying flat on their backs. Astra had a look of absolute horror on her face, while Alura’s eyes were full of sorrow and regret. Non’s face was full of fury, and Jor-El’s was quiet and remorseful.

 

Jax-Ur looked surprised as if Myriad had caught him with his pants down.

 

“Everyone is here,” Lena whispered. Myriad nodded.

 

The realization slowly clicked in Lena’s brain, the information flowing in and slowly congealing into the truth. This was…

 

“Space Ark.”

 

~

 

Lena had read the entire Bible, it was an interesting read beyond the book of Numbers. She loved math, however reading lists of things received wasn’t her idea of fun.

 

Anyway, Kara was telling her a story from their version of the Bible, about how the primordial gods Rao and Cythonna battle at the beginning of the world and Rao banished her from this realm.

 

Lena had told Kara the Flood story, and Kara had sat there enraptured as she listened.

 

“I would totally make a Space Ark.” She said, smiling.

 

At the time Lena filled it away as a thing she didn’t want to ask about.

 

~

 

“Kara.” Myriad nodded. “May I?”

 

Lena’s hand slowly inched towards the button she knew would be there on Myriad’s mask. Myriad stood still as Lena pressed in the side, and revealed her lovely and kind girlfriend’s face. Streaks of gold filled Kara’s veins, reaching her eyes.

 

“Kara why?”

 

She blinked. “Because for once I chose.”

 

~   
  


“Lena, do you ever wish you weren’t a Luthor?”

 

“All the time.”

 

“Sometimes, I wish, I wasn’t Kara.”

 

~

 

“Then you can pick.” Lena sighed, hugging Kara tight. “Decide. Destroy the Earth or save it. I will always love you either way, Kara Zor-El.”

 

~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this was a long battle and I can't believe I finally finished a story! I'd like to thank everyone who commented and left a Kudos, if it weren't for you guys I would have never finished tbh. I got so frustrated with this thing halfway through I almost quit, but you guys inspired me to make it through.
> 
> If you wanna see more of me I'm also on tumblr as bjorntheblorg, but I don't have much going on there yet. Feel free to stop by.
> 
> As a final note, if you wanna see a scene in Kara's point of view from this story, feel free to tell me. The next story in this series is a collection of scenes from Kara's point of view. Thank you all, and have a great day!


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